Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically Modified Seeds

BILL MOYERS: We turn now from one champion of the public interest to another. From Sheila Bair fighting for greater oversight of the big banks to a global advocate for social justice named Vandana Shiva.

VANDANA SHIVA: We need a new paradigm for living on the earth because the old one is clearly not working.

BILL MOYERS: The last time we spoke with her, she was battling Coca-Cola and other multinational giants over the privatization of water in her native India—including the waters of the sacred river Ganges. Since then, Vandana Shiva has become a rock star in the worldwide battle over genetically modified seeds. Those are seeds aggressively marketed around the world by big companies like Monsanto to not only increase, but also to monopolize food production and profits. Opponents challenge their safety, claim they harm the environment, are more costly, and leave local farmers deep in debt and dependent on suppliers.

Following Europe’s example, many American consumers are demanding that food products made from genetically modified seeds be labeled. Monsanto, the world’s largest supplier, claims intellectual property rights over its seeds and usually wins when it takes farmers to court for patent infringement. But in India, Monsanto claimed its seeds would produce bountiful crops and when the results fell short, many bankrupted farmers reportedly killed themselves.

Vandana Shiva, founded India’s Navdanya movement to promote the use of native seeds, and she has become a formidable figure in all these battles. Trained in physics, she’s an activist and prolific author whose books include “Earth Democracy,” “Soil Not Oil,” “Water Wars,” and her latest, “Making Peace With The Earth.” I talked with her again recently, when she came to New York to be honored by Union Theological Seminary.

Welcome back.

VANDANA SHIVA: Wonderful to be back with you.

BILL MOYERS: It's an uphill battle you're waging. How do you keep doing it? What drives you really?

VANDANA SHIVA: You know, we have this very beautiful text in India. We have the Gita.

BILL MOYERS: Bhagavad Gita?

VANDANA SHIVA: The Bhagavad Gita. And there's a very simple lesson that Krishna gives. That you do not measure the fruit of your action. You have to measure your obligation of action. You have to find out what's the right thing to do. That is your duty. Whether you win or lose is not the issue. The obligation to do the right thing, for me, you know, I've grown up as an ecologist in a major level, from my very childhood.

And for me, the diversity of species, their intrinsic value, their integrity is vital. The rights of our farmers to be able to have seed, the most fundamental source of livelihood in a poor country. Eighty percent of the food of the world is even, today, produced by those small farmers of the kind that we have in India. Our small farmers are feeding 1.2 billion Indians. We forget the scale of what smallness means multiplied many times. Because we've got used to the dinosaur mentality. We only see the big. We forget that dinosaurs go extinct.

BILL MOYERS: You have obviously seen things differently. Because you studied nuclear physics, right?

VANDANA SHIVA: I studied nuclear physics. But I also studied quantum theory. My thesis was on non-separability and non-locality in quantum theory.

BILL MOYERS: Which means?

VANDANA SHIVA: Which basically means everything is connected. Because the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution gave us a very mechanistic idea of the universe. First, we were told “Nature is dead. There's no living Earth. How can you even imagine the Earth lives? How can other species-- they're just inferior creatures of God. And you've got to have man's empire over God, over the Earth."

The idea that everything is this hard matter, unrelated to each other is still guiding a lot of science. And genetic engineering is based on that hard matter, genes in isolation, you know? Genes determine everything. There's a master molecule that gives orders. Old patriarchal stuff. The real science--

VANDANA SHIVA: Of interconnectedness, of non-separation. That everything is related.

Farming, for example, you must see the soil, the plants, the pollinators, the food that's produced, all of it in the whole.

BILL MOYERS: Let's take that to the system of economics. Because some people have said that globalization, the movement of ideas, of people, of money, across arbitrary boundaries, as if they didn't exist, also reflects the interconnectedness of everything. That globalization is an economic equivalent of what happens in the world of nature in that everything is connected. And you can't stop it Vandana Shiva. This is the way the world rocks.

VANDANA SHIVA: First of all, this is not interconnectedness of the ecological level. It's an extremely artificial, corporate rule on a planetary scale. Some corporations get to control the world. And then all that's flowing around is commodities. Commodities that don't have to be moving. It's still the old, hard, billiard ball model. You know?

You load the ships from China for cheap consumer products in Wal-Mart here. That is not a world of interconnectedness. The world of interconnectedness would recognize that the rivers of China need to flow, clean and free. It would recognize that the people of China need to exercise in work, in freedom, not as slave labor in factories to produce cheap goods.

This corporate globalization, based on more, higher, a deeper reach of corporations in fields where they had no role, food, water, the air, all into commodities—you know, transforming the Earth into commodities. That flow is not a flow of interconnectedness. And in fact, it is leading to a disconnection. If you look at the violence being perpetuated.

The reason I've written my new book, “Making Peace with the Earth,” is because I'm watching every day. I get calls every day from remote areas. "Please come down. They're shooting us. They're trying to tear down our sacred mountain of Niamgri, which has-- for aluminum. We have an iron ore in our mountains. They're displacing us." Every day there's a land war. Every day there's a water war. Because of the appetite of this global commodity-producing, consumption-based interconnection.

And I often say that what we have is an interconnectedness of the world through greed, which is not how nature works, which is not how humanity works. And an exclusion of people, a killing of their humanity. It is not an accident that with the rise of corporate globalization and economic globalization, we have seen the rise of religious conflict, ethnic conflicts, where people get divided, more and more and more.

So we're seeing human divisions. You're seeing a deeper division between human beings and the Earth. And all you see is a global reach. We are seeing a drop in our sense of a common humanity, and definitely a collapse in the planetary consciousness that we need to have. And for me, those are the two elements of making peace with the Earth. Reclaiming our common humanity and reclaiming our recognition that we are Earth’s citizens.

BILL MOYERS: The last time you were here, you were fighting Coca-Cola in India over the privatization of water. Now your bulls-eye is on Monsanto. Why is Monsanto so crucial to this fight overseas?

VANDANA SHIVA: Monsanto is crucial to this fight because they are the biggest seed company now. Monsanto is privatizing the seed. They control 95 percent of the cotton in India, 90 percent of the soy in this country. They've taken over most of the seed companies of the world.

BILL MOYERS: You say it's all about seeds. And that it comes down to corporations wanting to patent seeds. How does that work? What do you mean it comes down to seeds?

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, it comes down to seeds for the simple reason everything begins a seed. The food on our plate. You and me were seed at one point. The little calf that becomes the cow. Seed is the source of life. And seed is the source of renewal of life. That is where life gets renewed in perpetuity.

BILL MOYERS: So what does it mean when a corporation patents the seed?

VANDANA SHIVA: The first thing it means is a lie. That "I have created it. I have created life."

BILL MOYERS: "I, the corporation."

VANDANA SHIVA: The corporations claim that-- and, you know, we joke and say, a G.M.O., a genetically modified organization, which was the path to get patenting on seeds-- I sat at meetings where the corporations said, "The reason we've got to do genetically modified organisms is because it’s the only way we can claim a patent. A patent is a claim to invention, a claim to creation. And it brings with it an exclusive right to exclude anyone else from using, having, distributing the patented product."

BILL MOYERS: What's the claim? Speak from their side. What are they claiming?

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, they're claiming intellectual property. And they changed the language. They say the seed is no more a seed. It's an intellectual property. They make the society shift its thinking of what is at stake. Seed is the first link in the food chain. And therefore, when you control seed, you control food.

BILL MOYERS: You say that corporations have hijacked our food system. How so?

VANDANA SHIVA: Well I come from a country where there were no corporations in the food system until 20 years ago. They weren't allowed to be. Our rules said food was too precious. It was an important source of livelihood. So we had to protect our small farmers. Every law protected the small farmer, land rights, markets, prices, everything worked so a small farmer could have a living. Food processing stayed in what we call the cottage sector, the small scale sector. That's why we didn't have junk food and processed food. Globalization changes the rules. And agriculture agreement is written by a former official of Cargill to represent the U.S. public.

BILL MOYERS: Cargill--

VANDANA SHIVA: Is the world's biggest grain trader. The second is the intellectual property treaty controlled and written by Monsanto. And then you have the so-called food safety agreement called The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement. Every one of these are very highly complex names. Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, Sanitary and Phytosanitary. All of them are basically saying, "Let there be a monopoly of a corporation to have-- to write the rules so that only they can be players in the food system."

And the final step is the retail, where food reaches our table, Wal-Mart wanting to have foreign direct investment in retail. A big issue in India's parliament, a very big issue on the streets of India. So from the seed to the table, corporations are saying, "We want to be the only players." Five in seed, five in grain trade, five in processing, and five in retail. That is a corporate hijack of our food and a corporate dictatorship over our food system.

BILL MOYERS: But here’s what you’re up against. Several activist organizations—some seed businesses, some farmers, organizations like yours—filed a suit here in New York, challenging Monsanto's seed patents. And the U.S. district judge here in New York threw it out, saying it was “a transparent effort to create a controversy where none exists.”

VANDANA SHIVA: Yes, that case has been a sad ruling, a very sad ruling. In my view, it's the same kind of status that says corporations have freedom of speech and therefore they can hijack our democracy. Let them spend as much money as they can to literally buy elections. But for every case of this kind, there are other cases being won.

We have won cases against Monsanto in India.

BILL MOYERS: But if something like this is as bad as you describe it. If it's a monster roaming the countryside. How is it getting away with it?

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, it's getting away for two reasons. First, freedom, democracy, and choice is taken away. It's taken away from the farmer, by not allowing them to have their seed. It's taken away from the consumer by not letting them have labeling to say what they're eating. If there was labeling of G.M. foods, no one would eat it.

BILL MOYERS: Genetically modified--

VANDANA SHIVA: Genetically modified foods. The second deeper tragedy, which is why I link this always to democracy, is the fact that governments are being hijacked and governments are being influenced.

We stopped a whole agreement in Nepal by building a movement. Haitian farmers said, "We don't want this stuff." And they took it after the earthquake. The French have said, "We don't want this stuff." And the WikiLeaks show the ambassador saying, "We need retaliation.” This is a seed war. This is a war.

President Bush and our prime minister signed an agreement on agriculture, on the board of which sit Monsanto and Wal-Mart. And they then sit and dictate the policies. That means that much more work for us to reclaim our democracy and our freedom. So they're getting away, because they're using governments to shut down alternatives and push seed against the will of people.

And President Bush is on record in a film called “The World According to Monsanto,” senior President Bush, asking Monsanto, "What do you want us to do?"

MAN 1 in The World According to Monsanto: And I would say quite frankly, we have no complaints about the way the USDA has handled it. They’re going through an orderly process. They’re making sure as they deal with these new things they do them properly. No, uh, if we’re waiting until September and if we don’t have our authorization we may say something different.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH SR. in The World According to Monsanto: Call me. We’re in the dereg business. Maybe we can help.

VANDANA SHIVA: In India, Monsanto, in effect, controls our agricultural ministry and our prime minister's office. And so very, very often, we have to work very closely with our state governments, which are our regional governments, to defend our constitutional rights.

To say, "Why should we be force fed a genetically engineered B.T. eggplant, when we have the most delicious eggplants, 4,000 varieties?" It took a movement, 13 governments, 7 public hearings to put a moratorium. The advisors from here flew in to try and undo that moratorium.

BILL MOYERS: Monsanto advisors?

VANDANA SHIVA: U.S. Government advisors.

BILL MOYERS: On the side of Monsanto?

VANDANA SHIVA: On the side--the White House, the USDA--

BILL MOYERS: Department of Agriculture?

VANDANA SHIVA: And the Department of Agriculture and the FDA all have a revolving door with Monsanto. And this is all on record. So on the top, there's Monsanto, hijacking all our governments. And through that, trying to hijack our food supply. And from the ground, farmers, consumers, regional governments saying, "We want a Monsanto-free food system. We want Monsanto-free, G.M.O.-free, patent-free seed."

BILL MOYERS: Now Vandana, the other side of the argument is made by people like Bill Gates. Bill Gates says that genetically modified seeds are necessary to prevent starvation in poor countries because they enable farmers to double and triple their productivity.

VANDANA SHIVA: Unfortunately, he's so totally wrong on this assumption that genetically modified seeds produce more. In India, Monsanto came in with a claim of 1,500 kilograms of cotton per acre with their genetically engineered cotton. The average yields are 400 kilograms. Our studies show that. The government studies confirm this.

When you grow just genetically modified cotton, you destroy all the associate crops that were feeding the poor families. So it actually leads to less food. When you spray roundup and kill the greens that are necessary for women to have iron, for children to have vitamin A, you're creating hunger. You're creating disease.

Super weeds taking over your fields are a recipe for hunger. Pests overtaking your fields are a recipe for hunger. But worse, seed, patents are a way of getting money out of poor people. This is not a solution to hunger and poverty. This is aggravating the crisis poor people already face.

BILL MOYERS: You know, many people will hear you as they have the others who come on this, at the table and describe what's going wrong in the world. And they always-- they often write me on the web or stop me on the street and say, I heard that diagnosis. But what can I do?

VANDANA SHIVA: I think first thing is each of us has to daily ask a question, "Where am I complicit in a war against the Earth? Where are my daily actions part of a devastation of the planet and with it, a devastation of the lives of people." Because the two go hand in hand. A war against the Earth is a war against people. Peace with the Earth is peace among people.

Getting rid of the inequalities, the violence, the exclusions. And I realize that food is a place where we can all begin. Food is a place which is so loaded with dishonesty and is what keeps a false economy of food alive. The subsidies that go to industrial agriculture.

BILL MOYERS: Subsidies we taxpayers--

VANDANA SHIVA: Taxpayers pay. A high-cost system, which uses a lot of wealth of society, then uses our wealth to cheat on the prices and make costly food look cheap. So our choices are distorted. We go and eat the junk food that then creates the high cost of disease, the high cost of obesity, the high cost of diabetes at an early stage, the high cost of environmental devastation.

And so we need an honest system. And we can begin by creating that honesty and that peace by relating more directly to the food we eat, to the people who grow our food.

To me, the beauty is, every time I come back to this country, there are more farmer's markets. There is more commitment to local food supply. Even in the city of New York, people are saying, "We'll make local food. We'll grow local food." It is an easy step, but it is a very far-reaching step.

BILL MOYERS: You’ve spent time in this country, you know that in inner cities it’s almost impossible to buy fresh fruits and fresh vegetables.

VANDANA SHIVA: That's the challenge we have. It's not that there isn't a food stamp system. Public money is being spent on feeding the poor. But then it's insuring that the only access the poor have with the money they get, again from public money, is to bad food. We could divert this to good food. There's no rule in the book that says healthy food should be a luxury for the rich. Healthy food is a right for all.

BILL MOYERS: For the last 20 years, we've heard and read report after report of progress in India, the creation of a middleclass enjoying its new prosperity. At the same time, we read and hear and see stories of people deprived of their livelihood and their homes from huge environmental projects, big dams, big mines, big infrastructure. I mean, it's always been a lot of poverty there. But are you becoming-- is that great gulf becoming a permanent feature of India in this modern world?

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, you know, my small effort is to not allow it to become a permanent feature. But it's not that these are two separate worlds. They're separated in terms of the status of people, their dignity, their rights. But they are deeply connected at the levels of the Earth's resources.

The reason you have a few families joining the ten richest billionaires of the world in the Forbes list is because they've grabbed the land, the electricity, the resources, the oil, and that is what has left the other India poorer. It wasn't that the other India was left out. They've been pushed out. And that's why while we have some of the highest growth rates in the conventional measure of economic progress, which in my view is not a very reliable measure, we also have two of the most outrageous indicators that are linked to that model. The first is the quarter million farm suicides. If a quarter million farm--

BILL MOYERS: Those have been documented?

VANDANA SHIVA: They're documented. This is Government of India data. This is not our data. It's official statistics. And you can do an overlay. And the highest rates of suicides are in the cotton belt, 95 percent of the cotton today is Monsanto's cotton. So there is a link.

Today ever fourth Indian is hungry and every second Indian child is wasted or stunted, which in effect means that half of India is being robbed of its future. And to me, this is not acceptable. That is why we try and build a kind of agriculture that allows farmers to have a livelihood, for the poorest child or the poorest household to have nutritious food. It is not easy because the whole system is weighed against alternatives that would work for everyone.

It's partly because of the pressure of the corporations, but partly because of not thinking, of just being blind, of having been so fed by what I have called monocultures of the mind, you know, just turning to recipes from somewhere else. And of course the chemical industry will tell you only chemicals grow food. Chemicals grow toxics. Chemicals don't grow food.

That only Monsanto seeds will be able to remove hunger. And all of this new mythology becomes part of the policy framework. But I am deeply committed to make sure that this terrible brainwashing that is robbing our present generation and our future generations, that we are able to work collectively to change it. Because while in your parents’ generation, your generation, and in my generation, the doors of a growing economy were constantly opening up, today we are in a period, where for the majority, the doors are shutting down.

I work with people in Spain, with people in Italy. I advise the governments there, work with the movements there, or Greece, or the Occupy movement right here. They are realizing that what has been created is not going to provide opportunities for all.

BILL MOYERS: As you talk, I remember reading somewhere that Einstein had a big influence on you, right?

VANDANA SHIVA: Yes, I became a physicist because of him. I mean, you know, even as children, you get to, you know, if you read Nightingale, you want to be a doctor or a nurse. I read stuff Einstein wrote and he wrote simple stuff that you could read it. That's why I wanted to be a physicist.

BILL MOYERS: And he said once, I'm paraphrasing it, but "Unless an idea is at first absurd, it has no chance of success."

VANDANA SHIVA: Absolutely. He also said that you cannot solve the problems you face through the same mindset that caused those problems.

BILL MOYERS: Vandana Shiva, thank you very much for being with me again.

Vandana Shiva on the Problem with Genetically Modified Seeds

July 13, 2012

Bill talks to scientist and philosopher Vandana Shiva, who’s become a rock star in the global battle over genetically modified seeds. These seeds — considered “intellectual property” by the big companies who own the patents — are globally marketed to monopolize food production and profits. Opponents challenge the safety of genetically modified seeds, claiming they also harm the environment, are more costly, and leave local farmers deep in debt as well as dependent on suppliers. Shiva, who founded a movement in India to promote native seeds, links genetic tinkering to problems in our ecology, economy, and humanity, and sees this as the latest battleground in the war on Planet Earth.

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Higgs Boson: What came first: The Chicken or the Egg? Now we know the Egg, of course.

Mona

Corn production is 80% GMO. this GMO corn has the capability of producing its own insect toxins to prevent infestations. easier for the farmer, but humans, animals etc. are now getting an addition chemical in their food. i don’t know about you, but I would rather have the original real corn thank you. although there are so many pesticides that have been used in the heartland that it is so concentrated in our water shed that when it rains in the midwest it rains pesticides.

Kent Dills

All this corporate takeover and GMO is part of the New World Order and the Illuminati’s way of taking control of everything on earth, including population control. Henry Kissinger, member of the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Affairs once said ” Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World.” Also sterilization programs too for these poor countries. Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s ” If you control the oil, you control the country, if you control the food, you control the population

Mr. Kissinger, along with many other elitists like Hilary Clinton, are some of the most evil people on this planet. DDills

http://twitter.com/mrlaughter Tony Klein

India is fighting corporatism because they don’t want to become like the US. God be with you

It is very obvious that most humans do think that life can be seen as property. Ownership of animals and plants is the same thing as seeing life as property, isn’t it? What Vandana seems to be saying is that the major corporations are patenting the living property that they have modified by certain means. If genetically modified seeds blow onto your property, you cannot harvest or use those seeds, and if you do you will be fined a lot of money. What happens if you do not know those seeds are in your crop, and they inbreed with your plants? Your plants belong to Monsanto.

Susanna Lewis

I find Vandana Shiva incredibly inspiring! And the topic heartbreaking.

Ziziphus Jujube

I’ve heard some really monstrously bad things about Monsanto – 250,000 suicides in India in which Monsanto was complicit! I have a bumper sticker (from Northern Sun) that says,” I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” Monsanto would be a good one to start with.

guest

Spectacular show and spectacular guest. Vandana Shiva should be a guest on every news show as this GMO subject is too important to ignore. The general public must become more aware of the GMO issue and the harmful effects of Monsanto the world over. IPR (intellectual property rights) and seed patents are a dangerous development within agriculture and the public needs to get informed, quickly.

JR

I happened to watch the interview with Vandana Shiva on how the food chain in India is being taken over by corporates and GM. By sheer coincidence I was also reading an English commentary on one of Hinduism’s most scared books and the fountainhead of Indian Philosophy , the Upanishads. This particular Upanishad, The Chandogya Upanishad, talks of the production of food as an intrinsic process in the working of the Universe. In my opinion, if this is so, then tampering with the food chain using GM seeds is a recipe for disaster. I sincerely hope ancient wisdom prevails.

Zoidie

Bravo.. bravo.. bravo.. I love this woman, and I love you Bill.

May all our ideas be “absurdly” creative… and may we re-connect with that great giver.. mother earth.

Stephen Tardrew

I recently saw on Science Daily that insects are adapting to genetically engineered crops and building resistenct to them. Nature takes its time but eventaully it will find a way to adapt. These guys are playing with finely balanced ecologies sending them into a state of imbalance. Short term gain long term pain.

Stephen Tardrew

Thank you again Bill for a great interview.

I think there is an alternative way to understand corporatism, religion and politics in terms of biological imperatives and a heightened autonomic nervous system based upon fight and flight. The Emotional Brain by Stephen LeDoux. Wouldneed to write to you if possible or email my suggestion. My guess is there is a weighted preference amongst us for happiness, peace, goodness and love however we are driven by primal fears. (can be traced back to symmetry violations a the big bang) The Denial of Death Ernest Becker. Each child is born innocent therefore our whole system of judgement, blame and retribution is just plain wrong. If we model top down from Absolute Love and Absolute Forgiveness it is then possible to understand the necessary causal contributors to human behaviour. We need to go through a new phase of evolution in which our autonomic fear response is dampened and our wish for joy and happiness is enhanced. East and West our systems of logic are just plain primitive and underdeveloped. In the West sin, hell, purgatory; in the East karma and reincarnation. Both are based upon victim blame and guilt which reinforce intolerance and self-interest. Science, though it claims value neutrality, is also infected by traditional bottom up analytical process that tend to sustain the dominant paradigm. Vandana Shiva is pointing in the right direction. The solutions demand impossible questions that are not beholden to the current paradigm. There is nothing in this that contradicts scientific methodology however if Absolute Love is the starting point a very different conception of existence emerges compatible with science and religion. As Joseph Campbell would say “Follow your bliss” now we need to define and promote that bliss in a contemporary context. It can be done using science and direct insight however it must start from an empty slate free from dogma and authority in science and religion.

Bill–you really need to talk to plant scientists and economic researchers on this topic. Shiva is an activist with an agenda and not much acquainted with the facts, sadly.

Shiva is a serial liar on this. She misrespresents the suicide story. She tells tales about terminator seeds, which are 100% false as they have never been in the hands of farmers. And you let her get away with claims about the farmers that have been shown to be false in the peer-reviewed literature.

Bt has cut pesticide poisoning (1), and it has improved the financial status of small farmers (2). It decreases the use of pesticides and has benefits to farmers and farms regions (3).

Talking to Shiva is like talking to anti-vaxxers. And remember when you said this Bill, about vaccines: “That’s when you want a darn good scientist in a research lab. We’ll need all the help we can get from knowledge and her offspring.” Same is true on this topic.

Good post. Unfortunately it will most likely fall on deaf ears. People don’t let facts get in the way of their confirmation bias. I’m actually disappointed in Mr. Moyers on this one. Shiva has a master’s in physics and her PhD is in philosophy, but she is not a plant scientist.

Karl Hoff

Thank you Bill. Vandana Shiva is a treasure of the planet Earth. The idea that GMOs are save the World is founded on facts only if everyone doesn’t know that every plant and seed we have even the modified ones survived for at least 4 billion years without the destruction of them by GMOs and other farming methods. That means Pests, Hail, fire, volcanos, earthquakes, disease, drought, floods, ice ages and animal over grazing just to name a few. Where those things have failed to cause any end to the plants and seed, mankind in their quest to out do nature has in a short time done unspeakable damage. Not being a farmer or Plant scientist has not stopped me from improving my micro farm’s production. My 15’X15′ cucumber patch produces so many cucumber that few believe it. I pick them every day and my record is 128 for one of those day and not one drop of pestisides was used. Using the techniques I use I could probably feed the country using only the tire tracks of the mega farms. Thank you again.

LJH

Thank you Bill, for drawing attention to the very important issue. Viewers, look up Frontline’s “The Dying Fields,” and Vanity Fair’s article “Harvest of Fear” for more nonbiased information.

CBott

Vandana Shiva was an amazing guest that I had the good fortune of being able to view on your show today. Thankfully, there is an ever increasing awareness of the dangers of GMO mono crops. Soon it will be illegal to grow your own vegetables in your back yard as your seeds will effect the altered seeds. Our planet is being destroyed on every level and so very few people have the courage to speak up. Vandana Shiva is a brilliant woman whose only “agenda” is to awaken those so caught up in their own lives before the damage to our planet and ourselves becomes irreversible. We are able to make small changes in our lives that collectively will amount to great changes. Again, Mr. Moyers, thank you for having the type of program that allows a greater voice to a woman of such a noble cause.

Icelandic

Bravo Bill I am in total agreement with her….lets stop all the denial and lies that are trying to tell us that Monsanto is for us the little guy… you need to be able to get what she is saying and that is that it is all connected and this is a quantum theory……if you think with one side of your brain you will never get it.

marryam

THANKS,Vandana Shiva is the Godess of of Wisom our time and age. We all want to follow her foot steps….and do our parts.

Another find today which I am connecting to what I read at this site yesterday… I was reminded in another article about a saying attributed to various cultures — “you can easily count the seeds in a squash but you can’t count the number of squash in a seed” ah yes the abundance of nature ….oh wait… now … none.

CAS

COLLAPSING COLONIES Are GM Crops Killing Bees? By Gunther Latsch A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous. DDP Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops? Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist’s trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that “the very existence of beekeeping is at stake.” The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture. As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein’s apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing — something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor. Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers’ association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When “bee populations disappear without a trace,” says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because “most bees don’t die in the beehive.” There are many diseases that can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer find their way back to their hives. Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that “a particular toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar,” is killing the bees. Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case — for example in the run-up to the German cabinet’s approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February — their complaints are still largely ignored. Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites. But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent. In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate — by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover — at more than $14 billion. Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a “CCD Working Group” to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential “AIDS for the bee industry.” One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that’s left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found — neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were “extremely alarmed,” adding that the crisis “has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry.” It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees’ death is accompanied by a set of symptoms “which does not seem to match anything in the literature.” In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi — a sign, experts say, that the insects’ immune system may have collapsed. The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. “This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them,” says Cox-Foster. Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that “besides a number of other factors,” the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany — only 0.06 percent — and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees. The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called “Bt corn” on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a “toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations.” But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a “significantly stronger decline in the number of bees” occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed. According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have “altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry — or perhaps it was the other way around. We don’t know.” Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period. Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. “Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research,” says the professor, “and those who are interested don’t have the money.” Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Since the following article was written I rarely see a single bees anymore. CAS

GUest Limey

You sound like a spokesman for Monsanto. As for the facts; Animals have died from eating those crops. Period. End of Discussion. The GMO’ing of the crops WAS directly linked to those deaths by Botanists, genetic science AND the local agricultural departments of India, Australia, France, Germany and Italy. How DARE you throw politics into this! Typical Yank Arrogant Mentality!!! As for it not being in the hands of the farmers.. HOW in the BLOODY HELL did they wind up planted then?!? Also, ask the Mexican farmers as well as the Canadians about the results of using GMO’s… those are NOT fabrications or lies and your blindness to those facts is laughable at best, Disgusting in its lack of a complete picture and INTERPRETATION of facts.. Peer reviewed meaning farmers under the thumb of Monstanto!!!

Vmogorit

Thank you Bill continuing to inform. Vandana Shiva gave, me an added insight into the problems of genetic alteration of seeds and the greed of Monsanto and other big corps. We know these modification over time weakens seeds, and we are left in trouble. I quote, “A war against the earth is a war against life on this earth.” When are we going to stop the greed in our midst and stand up and try to stop it?

Ed Bourgeois

So you probably think Dr. Don Huber’s work is bunk too.

GUest Limey

Oh, almost forgot.. Mem and your supporter.. If these GMO’s are so BLOODY GREAT.. why then is it that the CEO’s and Salespeople who sell and market the seeds REFUSE to EAT their own crops?!?!? Answer THAT one you ruddy Republimunchikin!!!!

Karl Hoff

After reading what I wrote, I made a mistake in stating that GMOs and other farming methods did not lead to the distruction of our food chain. I ment to state that the natural disasters like pest, hail, fire etc. would not end GMOs and mega farming methods, NOT that GMOs and mega farming methods would not harm our ability to feed ourselves. If we keep using GMOs and mega farming methods, I believe that our food supply is in grave danger of ending as we know it. Sorry for the mistake, it is really hard for me to read what I write in such a small space.

Oliver

Someone once said; “he who controls the food, controls the people”. This is becoming the case with monsantos. None of us watching this video knows the real truth about anything, including moyers and the inspiring Shiva. We should also focus on what cooked foods we eat, and how heat damages most if not all of the nutrients. When we realize that corn, wheat, rice, beans, potatoes etc are largely consumed cooked (baked, boiled, nuked), well beyond nutrient molecule damage, then we can stop eating them and stop harvesting them — which will lesson the stress on our soils which is becoming more challenged and degraded with each passing year. Stress from over farming (including organic), and from pesticides. Not to mention the stress on our bodies eating these foods whose nutrients have been eradicated or damaged. farming can then focus on crops that we can eat uncooked, nuts, vegetables, fruits etc. Less impact on the earth and our bodies this way.

Christien

That quote came from Henry Kissinger..

Oliver

yes it is from kissinger – I wanted to keep it generic so as not to like or hate the comment based on being republican or democratic.

http://www.facebook.com/vatche.ohanian Vatché Ohanian

we need to act against the giant GMOs but we lack the unity of ONE VOICE against Monsanto and the rest…

Guest

Vandana for World President!

Ellen

There are so many organizations against Monsanto and companies like them; wouldn’t it do more good to UNITE all organizations to take this stand? United we stand, divided we fall.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701392609 Carol Stence

Thank you for this critically important information.

Chadhanson40

Amazing intellect!

Gmsamuel81

A true soldier of a movement that many of us don’t even realize is going on!

http://twitter.com/aTonyLuong Tony Luong

Great interview by Moyers of one of the more interesting thinker today – Vandana Shiva. Do wish that Monsanto is talked about as more than just a seed company, but as chemical empire responsible for the creation of Agent Orange.

If you are referencing the cattle in Texas…you are simply wrong…the grass that they ate, during drought, is known to create arsenic…

Mike D

Both the opening essay on the Rolling Stones article of the former middle-class made homeless and the epidemic of farmer suicides in India, have a common root.

Whether it be high finance or GM-food, we have adopted a paradigm whereby the corporation-person has been elevated to the status of an infallible and all-powerful deity, a war god. It has become sole provider not just of jobs and services but an arbiter of life itself. Corporate seed is a telling symbol of this overweening arrogance that the Greeks called ‘Hubris.’

Shiva points to a very ancient wisdom that the true giver of life is inter-connectedness.

What folks really need to research is the history of starvation on this planet prior to the 20th century…nothing, absolutely nothing is perfect nor will it ever be…Folks simply take soundbites and make them their life philosophy…reject any information that does not support what they already believe…Studies have shown that many folks are hardwired to do just that…form opinions and refuse to let evidence of any sort affect what they already decided…yes, decided to believe…go read…a lot…there are plenty of brilliant folks on both sides of this debate…Vandana Shiva has an agenda too…she wants to sell her books… validation for her “brilliance”…

Harriet Fasenfest

Money in politics, money in industrial food systems, money thwarting any reasonable response to our environmental crises. It is powerful and nearly impossible to counter. But we can all grow food or support local farmers that grow it if we will only learn to put it up and, more directly, cook. We do not need to by processed foods at all. Which is to say, we have a few ways yet to respond to the culprits even though our government will not.

Can you not see your own elitism?…You believe what you choose to believe which is fine…But just because you believe it, does not make it a truth…Believing that you are “enligtened’…does not make you enlightened…nor make it encumbant upon you to spread your truth…Did it ever occur to you that very few folks with roadside stands wouldn’t love to do the business that any chain does?…Did it ever occur to you that it is not the “calling” of lots of folks to be farmers?…Did it ever occur to you that such markets are cyclicle…expanding and contracting?…Politics, food systems, and all other institutions are human constructs…not entities unto themselves…”they” are us…and you too, my friend, as much as you seem to believe otherwise…are human…

Haftadance

Wow. Just wow…

Oliver

You do realize that cooking is processing?

Canyonlady1

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have a new heroine. Vandana is brilliant and wise.

Christinedura

I think you missed the whole point of the message..try coming from a place of really listening instead of a place of feeling attached. Just saying….

Christinedura

Breathe………..

http://www.facebook.com/sieglinde.alexander.5 Sieglinde Alexander

When will we understand that the fundament of our life is manipulated by greed?

http://www.facebook.com/sieglinde.alexander.5 Sieglinde Alexander

When will we understand that the fundament of our life is manipulated by greed?

Deepak Garg

Please don’t mis understand, there is no greed. It’s the system that’s running wild.

Some folks at least try to keep really open minds…it’s a real challenge, a really difficult thing to do…sort of devout Idon’tknowists…first you have to realize that no one knows everything…there is really good evidence on the side of GMOs that they are beneficial…however if you are someone who believes that capitalism is of the devil, you will reject that evidence…validity does not belong to one agenda or another…all I’m saying is that this kind of thinking, this kind of polarization does not move us forward…believing that Monsanto is an “evil” entity is sort of paranoid, sort of there’s a room somewhere where all the mean, greedy folks gather to plot to ruin the world and make minions of us all…to move us forward it is going to take ideas from everywhere…even diabolical Monsanto who has actually and continues to do a lot of good for people…besides creating problems for the environment, but not insurmmountable ones that are in Monsanto’s best interest to correct…Ideas about intellectual property are something that needs to be worked out…When anyone comes up with an idea and creates something from that idea…who owns that idea? For centuries we have decided that the creator who has vested time and resources in that idea owns it…be it poet or Alexander Graham Bell, Ford Motor Company, or Monsanto. Should there be a different standard? Even Noam Chomsky, the champion of no standards, has relied on copy rights and placed them in a trust for his children…So no one really owns the high road, either…Often we are just alarmists and because we are, we make these lemming rushes toward one flash point or another, nearly always set off by someone else’s agenda and the media…

You have to be aware, Oliver…you have to become first of all a devout Idon’tknowist…and work on it like it is a religion…you have to see the validity in differing points of view…not that there are not truths out there…but they are small ones and few to none are truths for us all…Not Vandana Shiva’s and not Monsanto’s…polarization moves no one forward…

As a devout Idon’tknowist, Chris…that’s exactly what I try to do…It’s really difficult, isn’t it? To find validity in differing points of view? To avoid all or nothing ways of looking at situations that polarize us and prevent us from solving problems?

Some folks at least try to keep really open minds…it’s a real challenge, a really difficult thing to do…sort of devout Idon’tknowists…first you have to realize that no one knows everything…there is really good evidence on the side of GMOs that they are beneficial…however if you are someone who believes that capitalism is of the devil, you will reject that evidence…validity does not belong to one agenda or another…all I’m saying is that this kind of thinking, this kind of polarization does not move us forward…believing that Monsanto is an “evil” entity is sort of paranoid, sort of there’s…

Some folks at least try to keep really open minds…it’s a real challenge, a really difficult thing to do…sort of devout Idon’tknowists…first you have to realize that no one knows everything…there is really good evidence on the side of GMOs that they are beneficial…however if you are someone who believes that capitalism is of the devil, you will reject that evidence…validity does not belong to one agenda or another…all I’m saying is that this kind of thinking, this kind of polarization does not move us forward…believing that Monsanto is an “evil” entity is sort of paranoid, sort of there’s…

Oliver

I believe it was I who first said on this thread; None of us watching this video knows the real truth about anything, including moyers and the inspiring Shiva. Having an open mind still doesn’t make one privy to any “real truths”, nor does it enlighten one to the facts. I don’t care for differing points of view – certain facts eliminate conjecture and speculation. I believe in thorough investigating to get at the core of most issue so that “maybe’s” are left outside the of the equation. Capitalism does not equal greed no more than communism or socialism – greed, wanting more than you need, has no party ties

The equation is predicated on “Maybe”, speculation and conjecture, for me, are far more inspiring (even the adjectives we use are clues) than Vandana Shiva…without them, no one would ever consider possibility…Enligtenment is simply the possibility of “knowing”…far too many enligtened ideas later have proven not so enlightened after all…or were only a hint of a greater idea…evolution, maddeningly slow, evolution of understanding and compassion which leads to evolution of our consturcts seems the closest we’ve come to enlightenment…for every single generation believes theirs is the “best of times and the worst of times” perhaps because we are so limited in understanding much beyond our own infinitesimal existence…our species is not important to anyone or thing except us…thus evolution seems our only hope…our impatience matters only in our individual circumstances…so in that is inter-connectedness…You and I probably don’t differ all that much in the way we perceive the world…but this is nothing more than our perception…and no more valid or less valid than for anyone else…

Oliver

That all sounds nice, deep and all – maybe someday to be quoted even – I how ever didn’t understand it. What are you trying to say – in simpler phrasings, what is your point overall?

JonThomas

I, for one, am trying to not “misunderstand,” but what do you mean by…”there is no greed?”

http://twitter.com/stellabelle Leah Stella Stephens

Vandana Shiva is my heroine. This should be taught in every school in every country.

Jean

Thank you for this thought provoking program! I am wondering if the genetically modified seeds could be a cause of the disappearance of our bees, butterfly’s, and other important insects that are needed for propagating our plants, Our Food Resource. The altered seeds could be lacking some natural nutrients needed for the survival of these absolutely needed insects which intern is also needed for our survival. It is dangerous to try and fool mother nature. Sincerely, Jean

It seems naive to believe that the “maybe’s” of this world have no place in the equations for problem solving when you say you rely on scientific process for finding truths…though generally scientists settle for probability rather than truth…Without “maybe” or the possibility of finding “truth” or better, the solution to a problem, how or why would anyone begin?Is that not the foundation of the scientific method? Maybe GMOs are more problematic than they are beneficial…maybe they are more beneficial than they are problematic…maybe we don’t have enough evidence on either side to make difinitive decisions…Maybe they are more beneficial generally than they are in individual circumstances and maybe if this is a fact a solution that problem can be found…Maybe enlightenment is only evolution…Maybe we should not take our species so seriously, which seems to be a concensus of a great many people who have given it a great deal of thought…

Oliver

My motto has of late been “maybe, it’s all maybe” – I got that from a nano tech geek. However, there is no maybe’s for me when it comesto science going beyond what is natural. seedles grapesare convienneient yes, but natural no. I don’t know what the long term ramifications could be, and i wouldn’t know who to believe. I beleive in the other specieces who don’t tamper with their natural food sources. I can no longertrust science that is working on genetically modifying a cow in that it will yield human milk — googleit.

@Oliver…I believe, absolutely in nano tech geeks…but by the reckoning you seem to espouse determining “natural” as what you determine as the only way of being…which is fine, if that determination applies only to you…despite environmental hazards and lifestles, many cancers are naturally occuring and may be simply part of the natural process of living and dying…and while there is some success with natural remedies, these are far fewer than with unnatural medical intervention, yet few would argue that such intervention, as unnatural as they are, not be part of the treatment for disease…and you said it earlier…cooking changes the molecular structure of food…natural, or unnatural?…It’s a fine line, isn’t it? And generally, one of individual perception…Other animals instictively do things that benefit themselves, be it the societies they form or the actions they take as their part in the food chain…They also adapt and evolve with plenty of evidence that they always have…after all millions of species of animals and plants became extinct before humans were ever a factor…But I believe in the balance of nature…and while I believe that there are many things that humans do to affect that balance…there are also many things we’ve come up with that act either in hamony with nature, or address those things in indifferent nature that are harmful for humans…including solutions for naturally occurring infectious, airborne and animal borne, diseases, safer childbirth, longevity, better means of shelter from the environment, and outlets for our creativity and imagination…two human traits for which there is little to no evidence that these exist in other species…certainly not to the degree that they exist in all humans… painting elephants notwithstanding…

Oliver

I wasn’t in particular referring to natural remedies – I just don’t care to embrace “science” as so many others do. There is natural science, which seeks to explain certain phenomena, and then there is science which seeks to alter or enhance or eradicate various phenomena.

AnitaC1040

Another great show, Bill!

Hadassah2esther

My new shero!

http://www.facebook.com/jennifer.smietana Jennifer L Smietana

For Deborah and Oliver:

Both of your arguments were incoherently written, likely due to your emotions, which is understandable, so forgive me if I misinterpret your stance on any issue.

It is not a black and white issue and unfortunately, GMO corporations are selling another extreme version of the story. I understand your frustration regarding polarization of issues. I don’t know if either of you has the science and regulatory background to understand how food and technology are regulated in the US.

I actually challenge both of you to look at the history and economics of the food system, which I don’t think you have or you probably would not be stating that “maybe Monsanto is doing good with GMOs”or that “everything natural is better”….to paraphrase your comments.

Pesticides, medical products and food safety regulations are all based on short-term safety and immediate toxicity. I have worked with scientists and worked against them in lawsuits and environmental health campaigns. I have studied archives of documents including FOIA and medical studies from all sides of an issue–government, private industry and nonprofit institutions.

I also think you would benefit by independently researching the causes of starvation and crop failure. Don’t just read articles published on the internet or in standard publications…actually go on to read the studies and research cited by the authors.

The pro- GMO corporations are using the same tactics and poor research as the companies that promoted cigarettes, asbestos and DDT (to name a few) used to “prove” they had a safe product.

They only difference is that gene manipulation is pretty much forever (in terms of the human lifespan).

In the past, while questioning an FDA official point blank, about the long term effects for a contaminated product (that had been sold and used by consumers), he responded, “we don’t have the budget or time to consider any consequences beyond immediate reactions and death (LD 50 dose)….long-terms effects, we just don’t know”.

Starvation and hunger are complex issues and not caused because the world cannot produce enough food with conventional(non GMO) and organic methods.

A majority of the problem is control over the food system:

*Massive amounts of food waste; *Monopolization and corporate control of the food supply *Monopolization and corporate control of governments and research institutes *Civil wars (warlords holding back food grown in a country as well as stealing humanitarian supplies which are resold to profit the controlling regimes; *Government subsidization of non-essential crops (which are often stored and spoil in silos); Overpopulation; *Foreign nations buying land and taking water supplies from nationals (research Africa and current land grab by water poor nations including Saudi Arabia); *Processed food industry….to many empty calories taking away resources to produce nutrient rich products. *And too many others to list in a comment posting.

GMOs have not been rigorously tested and you can never trust the scientific evidence provided by a multi-national corp to prove safety. If you do, you fall into the same trap that caused millions of deaths and illness from cigarettes, asbestos, beryllium, PERC ( aka tetrachloroethylene or perchloroethylene) nuclear waste..and so on

Also, the FDA, USDA and other regulatory agencies are not concerned with long-term effects on people or the environment…no time, no money and the politicians want their donors to be happy and make money.

I am not anti-science…I am pro-stem cell use, love my Mac and think modern medicine and natural remedies should be used together for integrated health care. I believe nuclear medicine can be good, but nuclear energy should be banned (don’t use a dangerous technology if you don’t have the science and tech to clean up the mess).

Oliver

So you’re the one with all the answers. Thanks for filling us in on how these things work and how foggy our brains are. At what point are you going to link us to your agenda – however green it may be!

No agenda, just an opinion from years of experience and research. Only people with agenda’s use an alias to comment on-line. At least Deborah used her real identity. Maybe if you reacted rationally and without anger your agenda and your thoughts would have been clearer in your responses.

FYI eating a pure raw food diet is not healthy either, some nutrients and phytochemicals require heat to increase their bioavailability to the human body, e.g. lycopene.

Oliver

Oliver is my real name. james is my last. No big deal there. as for raw, while i love my burgers, you couldn’t be more raw. We arrived as a species some 7 million years ago (depending on who u ask) eating only raw – we continued eating only raw for those 7 mil up until recently (10/15 thousand years ago – depending on who u ask. So, for 7 mil years we needed no assistance from a wok to make our nutrients more bio available. Bio available is a food science marketing term. No other species in the wild needs to have their nutrients altered in order to better benefit them. Does the shark need to put a sea lion in the oven to make it;s nutrients more bioavailable. which of the millions of species on earth needs to do this. Only us dumb humans. Which species has the most diseases – us dumb humans – we have 12,000 and counting… Biologists are always puzzled and amazed at how the other species survive and thrive. From alligators and sharks (who have been here for 400 million years), to the many species in the amazon jungle and all tropical rain forests etc, scientists continue to marvel at the resilient, resistant, and super strong immune systems of the many other species that share this planet. It’s actually quite simple: The one thing all the other species have in common is that they are “Nutrivores”; that’s my way of saying that whether they survive on meats or plants or the sun, they don’t mess with their nutrients, in any way, shape or form. Diet, which to me means only nutrients, is so fundamentally and critically essential to health. This is so, for better or worse, depending on the lack of or amount of vital nutrients provided to our bodies. Sorry for the C and P, but anytime you want to meet in a lab to bear out the truth we can exchange emails if this forum would allow – just sayin

JonThomas

Well said Jennifer.

It’s always good to see comments which add to the conversation.

JonThomas

It I may…

From my understanding, by your phrasing, you are both right.

Heat does help increase the availability of certain nutrients, but it is not strictly required.

However, while heat does facilitate the availability of certain nutrients, it hinders and destroys others.

So perhaps, within the confines of which your personal preferences allow, a varied diet seems to be most beneficial.

An open mind to altering preferences, according to informed consent, is also often a good thing.

Oliver

Respectively, There is not a nutrient on this planet that is enhanced or that need to be made “available” to us. Most if not all molecules are fragile entities. They can’t be improved on. They can only be changed into something else or destroyed altogether. The molecule C20H30O must be kept in that precise order or structure if u will in order for it to do what it do. Jon, if we do anything to that fragile molecule, add heat or even light, or other acids (Ph), oxygen, pressure, or any number of things that can impact and change that molecule including other molecules interacting with it then it is no longer that molecule C20H30O which is also known as vitamin A. Minerals are different. salt will only breakdown to more salt. Sugar will caramelize etc but still be sugar – so too with iron and other metals etc. proteins are molecules as well and can easily be impacted by light, heat, oxygen, other proteins, Ph (acids) etc. We can “cook” meat or fish just by adding lemon juice. This is acid impacting proteins – not making them better or more available, but changing them into another type protein or damaging it all together. If you are seeking a certain protein from fish or steak say, don’t alter it or it will be another protein – perhaps an now new, rogue, harmful protein. With chemistry there are no personal preferences, there are no opinions, there is simply what happens when A meets B. And way more times than not, when A meets B, it can’t be undone – we can’t return a cooked egg back to it’s original clear, gelatinous native state.

JonThomas

Actually, your passion for your own preferences aside, I did not say “need.” I simply said “does.”

Heat/cooking does indeed render certain nutrients more “available” than in their “raw” form.

whether you heat, or “cook,” your foods, according to your preference, that fact stands.

Oliver

merry christmas?

JonThomas

Oops…whether you heat, or “cook” your foods, or not… not*

zip

Has anyone heard about Kraft, Pepsi-Co and a few other large food industries, paid out 30 million dollars each, to a company in California that is doing food enhancements research with the use of kidneys from Embryos from abortion clinics. Check it out……

Oliver

U mentioned the word fact. So lets speak only from facts then. Whichnutrient molecule are you refering to when you say “certain” nutrients. Pick one and lets discuss it from a purelyfactual molecular level. Not from wikipedia, but from what actually happens chemically. Pick the nutrient molecule and we’ll discuss it. I will categoricallyshow you how if you change even the slighted atom you have changed the entire molecule. I will show you how if the 2 is taken out of H2O it is no longerwater,it is now a hydroxide ion for instance. If we add a 2 to H2O (H2O2) we have hydrogen peroxide. Many molecular changes are based on the subtraction or addition of one little tiny atom. These changes can occur on their own or when introduced to other criteria; light, oxygen, heat, Ph, water,pressure. Show me that one nutrient molecule that is impervious to chang under various circumstances, or any circumstances and I’ll show you a diamond – but that ain’t a nutrient (or is it?) U can’t change a molecule and expectit to do the same thing as the original molecule. It’s not an opinion, your’s mine, or macdonalds, it’s simplythe laws of the universe and the physics with in it.

jjmcomcast

I don’t think that genetically modified seeds are unhealthy for people, I think it is a political problem. Moyers observed at one point that Bill Gates said that modified seeds are necessary to feed the increasing population. But who wants to follow Gates’s opinion. His chief corporate business plan at one point was to force all users of Windows to bundle Microsoft software. His stance has been and remains all power to the corporation. Of course he supports Monsanto. Monopoly has been his bread and butter.

Oliver

Jon – the posting seemed elongated – maybe it’s just on my screen. I am reposting in that if there was a problem this would be an easier read:U mentioned the word fact. So lets speak only from facts then. Whichnutrient molecule are you refering to when you say “certain” nutrients. Pick one and lets discuss it from a purelyfactual molecular level. Not from wikipedia, but from what actually happens chemically. Pick the nutrient molecule and we’ll discuss it. I will categoricallyshow you how if you change even the slighted atom you have changed the entire molecule. I will show you how if the 2 is taken out of H2O it is no longerwater,it is now a hydroxide ion for instance. If we add a 2 to H2O (H2O2) we have hydrogen peroxide. Many molecular changes are based on the subtraction or addition of one little tiny atom. These changes can occur on their own or when introduced to other criteria; light, oxygen, heat, Ph, water,pressure. Show me that one nutrient molecule that is impervious to chang under various circumstances, or any circumstances and I’ll show you a diamond – but that ain’t a nutrient (or is it?) U can’t change a molecule and expectit to do the same thing as the original molecule. It’s not an opinion, your’s mine, or macdonalds, it’s simplythe laws of the universe and the physics with in it.

Neither of those is my direct quotation, and as with all folks with an agenda…you have taken them out of context… “I have worked with scientists and worked against them in lawsuits and environmental health campaigns. I have studied archives of documents including FOIA and medical studies from all sides of an issue–government, private industry and nonprofit institutions.” “GMOs have not been rigorously tested and you can never trust the scientific evidence provided by a multi-national corp to prove safety. ‘ Both quotations suggest that you do have an agenda, along with most of the rest of what you have to say…I have no reason not to believe what you claim about your experience…and you have none to make the many assumptions that you make about where and how I’ve acquired my information…Food growth and distribution are every bit as complicated as you say…and politics, as you say always makes every situation more complicated…but if you have really studied starvation then you also know that before the 20 century it was even more complicated, that tribalism, feudalism, the weather, religion, ignorance and superstition played a greater part…and with greater devastation…You seem to have fallen victim to every conspiracy theory that has come down the pike…Your litany of beliefs seems to beg for validation of what is your perspective; however, you seem to see a boogey man or evil corporate agent behind every tree…or business model…Folks with such paranoia, also must place blame in order for their world to make sense…Sorry for the elipses. They are a bad habit, I realize…but then I’m only human…

JonThomas

It is good to find knowledgeable people, but this is an article about a different topic. So no thanks, I’m not going to get into a debate, or even a polite discussion.

However, there is plenty of information on the web about the bio-availability of beta-carotene. For the record, I eat most of my food raw, or very lightly cooked.

I say most, because my preferences are based on many factors…including the flavors found in the wonderful taste of some extremely well cooked foods.

Oliver

For the record, I eat my food mostly cooked (including the pasta i am going to have in an hour). The point of cooking, is, too change the molecular nature of things – the problem is that nutrients are also molecules and they get changed as well. Of course there is plenty of stuff on the internet about bio availability. It is in the lab where the truth and facts lie. Most nutritionists write at length about bio availability. No nutritionist i have ever come across has used a mass spectrometer. 99 percent of them have never even heard of one. It is one of a number of tools to study proteins etc on an atomic level. Most nutritionists have only basic chemistry or biology and none have a background in nutrient damage from a molecular standpoint, which you would think would be critical to teaching nutritional science – yet no school on nutritional science discusses nutrient damage on a molecular level. Most nutrition schools and courses are on line – so so much for real lab work – which would greatly increase ones understanding of nutrient damage – yet many still speak of bio available. Again i ask, which species is lacking a nutrient due to not having it cooked making that nutrient more available? Does the shark who has been around for 400 million years lacking in any nutrient? How on earth do they manage with out an oven? As this relates to the topic; We are over stressing our soils, we are degrading our soils not just with pesticides, but with over farming. We should use our precious soil to grow crops that don’t need to be cooked. Crops like nuts and vegetables and fruits. All other crops, potatoes, wheat, corn, beans, soy, rice, all need to be cooked – this destroys the nutrients – the ones that are molecules anyway. The ones that aren’t, minerals, can still be leached out in the food prep and cook process. Believe me, the protein molecule that is in a raw stalk of wheat, does not exist in your bread. If you need a hint as to some evidence, contact a flour milling house and they will tell u what heat does to nutrients. Ironically, they boast that their mills do what they can to keep temps below destroy levels. They consider 119 degrees F to be a destroy level and some boast that their methods, stone ground for instance, is a cool process of milling thus maintaining the nutrient value of their product. Duh!!!! we cook the flour at 350 in the case of bread! Anyhoo, once we harvest only crops we can eat raw, we can lesson Monsanto’s grip.

http://twitter.com/mem_somerville mem_somerville

YouTube is not an appropriate method of publication in science, that’s true. Many of us have awaited the promised publication from Huber and it hasn’t appeared.

What we need to see is the evidence. We examine the data, determine if the study was done appropriately, and draw conclusions.

Or you can believe anything someone floats on YouTube. If that’s how you make decisions, I wish you luck.

http://twitter.com/mem_somerville mem_somerville

Having trouble reading that screed, so I really don’t know what to say. But if you provided some sources maybe they’d be clearer.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Leigh-Bucci/691302806 Leigh Bucci

So many of these comments seem to be missing the point. We do not need to argue whether or not genetically-modified seeds are good or bad or something in between. (1)label foods GMO or non-GMO and let consumers vote with their feet. (2)repeal laws which allow patenting GMseeds as intellectual property. Seeds propagate, changing ‘competitors’ to themselves & creating forced infringement. The law creates monopoly. (3)Give gov’t reg a fighting chance: change the 20y.o. ruling that GM is the same as breeding & thus no new regs needed.

Jdietrick9

Something else you can do: go to carighttoknow.org and endorse the ballot initiative to label GE food in California (that represents 12% of the GNP) and donate. The dishonest high cost system will see the beginning of the end. If everyone who heard the show donated around $5-10 we could afford to educate the voters why they want to vote YES in November. The implications of this citizen’s initiative are so great for all nations and the future of the human race. Many farmers are afraid to publicly endorse the initiative even though they are not happy with the results with GM seed and agree with the fundamental right to know if food contains GE ingredients. They risk not being able to get ANY seed, GM or nonGM. The supply of most of the seed is controlled by Monsanto and friends. Farmers have to buy what they offer or else have the courage and resourcefulness to recreate a farm plan developing a new uncontaminated nonGMO seed supply and creating direct relationships with people who eat what they grow.

Karl Hoff

Hi Jon, Well put. I watched a show on PBS a few years ago where they discussed what increased life expectancy the most and it was cooking food, even more than antibiotics. If we did not cook food, we would loose most of our ways to store it. Even Freezing most vegetables requires blanching them. I can and freeze up to 200 gal. a year and my best friend is my pressure cooker, which kill all that would kill me. I save much of the lost nutrients by steaming. I believe that proper cooking does more to releave stress than just about anything. Something that tastes good makes me feel good. I spent a long time learning to fry in the oven and get it right. It requires you to turn the oven on its highest heat and use a pan that can take it (not glass) and completely cover the pan with what you are frying or the butter or oil will burn. What it does is caramelize the food increasing the flavor greatly. Looking at what food contains when it has been eaten for so long would put into question even salt, which is composed of two deadly poisons.

Ridetramp

Simply label foods as gmo or non and people will make theory choice.

CAS

We need to outlaw GM foods or heavily regulate and test as in the FDA. We(GM industry) are messing with things we don’t understand and leaving our foods to an unregulated Genetic Engineering Industry . Creating foods with bio-toxins which insects like bees absorb while pollinating to die. It’s not about people, but money. Even the FDA is a revolving door.

Oliver

The whole “life expectency” issue is misleading. It’s the same ratio as it was thousands of years ago. 2000 years ago we had people living into their seventies and 80’s and beyond – they represented perhaps 5 to ten percent of the population – the genetic pool, which has also varied and broadened over the years. So now, some two thousand years later our population has increased 100 fold or more (too lazy to do the math here). So what we now have is billions more people, and the same ratio of people living longer than the rest. Pay attention to the numbers that speak to how many humans are more and more dying at a younger age. If has been said just this year, that this generation of kids may not outlive their parents – this is directly related to food. Look at the staggering number of americans who have died from some disease this years and every year for the past ten or twenty years. Those who make it past 50 are more and more suffering from the poor diets of their youth. Quality of life is being coming more a rarity for those even in their fifties. – that’s when all of that cooked foods starts to rear it’s head and do it’s things. Again, my friends, we live and survive and thrived on only raw food for 7 million years. How did we manage to do that. How are the other species still managing to do that? We depend on science too much. I love science as much as the next guy. I love cooked food more than the next guy. But science will never be smarter than mother nature. Go take a walk in the woods and look at all the other species doing their thing. Go scuba diving and observe all the myriad species down on the deep. ask your self, how in god’s name are they managing without science. How in the heck are all of these millions of species from plant and insects to fish and fowl and the wildebeest, managing without science – or cooked food. You’re food is already cooked, already prepared for you by Moma nature and whatever god you pray too (if you’re so inclined). We can’t improve, or enhance, or augment, a nutrient molecule. – it is what it is – already that nutrient molecule. karl, pressure steaming is how chemists sterilize their instruments. Your nutrients are going the same way of your harmful bacteria – as in bye bye. Bacteria has protein, and some bacteria, ecoli etc are hardier than most nutrient molecules so to do away with them does away with everything – again, simple physics – and you don’t have to be a physicist; if science is telling you we need to pasteurize this or that to kill bacteria, you can be sure it’s killing off vital nutrients as well as vital bacteria. The “bad” bacteria that is in mothers breast milk, serves to strengthen the child’s immune system. We kill off and wash away (when we rinse our veggies) so many vital and essential microbial s, that we don’t allow ourselves, like the other species, to build up strong immune systems. So now we, modern man wash our foods, and then we cook them – fully ensuring that we get no nutrients out of the whole process.

Linda Tipton

Well done Vandana Shiva!!!

Karl Hoff

Hi Oliver, Thank you for your reply. I have written and studied population growth for decades and I agree that few understand it. When I was 10 the world population was about 2.5 billion. It has increased for many reasons, but mostly because of better sanitation and medical care. We may see a decrease in the life expectency, but it is more the blame of a lack of exersize in the young. My mother never carried me once I could walk, I walked to school and had a lot of chores. Today its TV, video games, computers, and most of all remote controls that are adding to the lack of exersize. I know you are passionate about your cause, but when you reply to people somehow you do what the rest of us do by eating cooked foods. I found better health by no longer eating a lot of sugar. I no longer drink soda, coffee, tea or alcohol. You are right to be concerned about today’s food. If one cannot understand what’s in food, they should avoid it. I believe we could take a lesson on nutrition from the beaver, they live on wood and bark in winter…..And you guessed it, “They stay busy as a beaver”!

Susan Carothers

wonderful show – thank goodness for Bill Moyer and for bringing people such as Vandana Shiva to the public! Thank you, Susan Carothers

Nancy

I would have hoped that studying physics and quantum theory would lead most students to similar conclusions of social and environmental equality but it cannot be. It must require a love of people first.

Takefman

Mr. Moyers, the Chinese need to hear this and many more of your interviews and commentaries. Can you put in subtitles for them? I’m a North American working for an environmental NGO in China, and they do not get exposed to such viewpoints. Meanwhile Monsanto is building its foundation here. Subtitles please.

Oliver

U R exactly right. How does a young boy or girl who dreamed of chemistry and all it’s wonderment, and then became chemist as an adult, end up working for Marlboro or Newport making cigarettes?

Jtschampi

At last an intelligent voice of reason, clarity and truth. A real inspiration. Must see.

Jhsj34207

Mr. Moyers and Ms. Shiva need to revisit the effect of GMD after they read the U.S. Codex Ailimentarius and take a look the the U.N program Agenda 51. Both of those programs are part of a world-wide push for “global equality” and “global standards”. I think the word “Global” is understood to stand for something else. (wink)

Make a man hungry, offer him food, and he will likely do anything you ask.

By the way, about July 14, the BBC broadcast a segment where the courts sided WITH the individual’s right to sell his produce.

Oliver

T How can one get involved with your NGO in china?

Jhsj34207

OOPS! My mistake. In my previous post I quoted the wrong name of the U.N. AGENDA 21, not 51. Agenda 21, for 21st century, I guess. And I meant to say GMF, Genetically modified Foods. I guess I’m old. tired, or both. On this very page, in the left column, note the “World Trade Organization” agreements. Do you suppose any of them them are for YOUR benefit?

Noelle Maylander

I found it hard to sleep last night after watching this show, all I could think about is how GMO’s are taking over the world. Last weeks NY Times showed us that Certified Organic food can not be trusted thanks to the 5/10 vote allowing pesticides to be call organic and all then you have Bill Gates tell everyone that GMO’s produce more food- a total LIE.

I think we need to start producing a product called “GOD’s SEEDS, No Paten necessary”

Anne

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Oliver

The fda (or someone) allows Trader Joes to sell you almonds that are labeled raw, when in fact they are pasteurized (since 2007 it has been the ruling that almonds must be pasteurized in the us).

JL

The “link” between suicides and GMOs is very, very shaky. See the facts at: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp00808.pdf

JonThomas

Just curious… if it is “shaky,” should it not have been mentioned or reported on?

I didn’t follow your link, instead I googled the IFPRI. It seems to be pro-GM foods group.

It would not be surprising then, that it would publish information that would belittle the link between suicides and GMOs.

If it weren’t for this interview, I would have never heard of these suicides. I am grateful to M(r)s. Shiva and Mr. Moyers for presenting information that needs to be considered.

Did IFPRI announce that there may be a link, or publicize that lives may have been lost ? Are they concerned that even 1 farmer may have committed suicide because promises were not met?

Many of us are getting tired of industry, trade groups, and even independent groups who belittle the lives, and deaths of people around the world.

It is so easy to just write them off. On paper, or as statistics, they mean nothing. We sit in front of our computers while never having met 1 of these farmers.

So instead of you writing something like…

“The “link” between suicides and GMOs is very, very shaky. See the facts at: xxxxxxx… But I hope it isn’t true, it would be very sad if it were true.”

You instead just come to treat this issue like a science project.

Because of the inhumanity shown in comments like yours, your entire viewpoint is condemned.

“We are collectively hallucinating, in a hyper-frenzy of consumerism and thinking we are progressing in the process” – Dr. Shiva speaks for all of humanity.

MUST WATCH!

Bookmann

Just visited hometown in North Dakota. Didn’t see one wild prairie rose. What else is Roundup Ready doing to our environment?

Bevm

subtitles for the Deaf and hearing impaired also – please!

Hazel

yes, GMO foods should be labled b/c consumers have a right to food choices and their rights as consumers to make their own decision

http://www.facebook.com/jit.dogga Jit Dogga

I very much enjoy your show, Bill, but in this case I found Dr. Shiva’s viewpoint too simplistic and sweeping. It was like listening to an old-school communist talk about the utter evil of capitalism. The world is just not black and white. I would love it if you hosted a show with a nuanced discussion on the issues around GMOs.

Anonymous

$$

http://profile.yahoo.com/VXXHJFEN3BWZ4DWHSF2EN3XE3Q MeenakshiS

Yet another wonderful articulate interview with Dr. Shiva- thank you Mr. Moyers. Interesting comments too. I would like to add that one of the cornerstones of Dr. Shiva’s fight is for social justice. She has clearly outlined the dynamics of how poverty “works”- how the poor are made “poorer” and disenfranchised from the system created by corporations who “rule” via the local “democratically elected” governments. Having seen the extreme rural poverty in India vis a vis the wealth in the cities (not including the appalling slums there), I know exactly what she is speaking of. For many of us who have not “met” the farmers our lands- be it in rural India or rural Africa or rural Haiti, we live in our living rooms via our computers and think the issue away with some bytes of information fed to us via the internet. The struggle is real. When our wells run dry because Coca Cola has just pumped out the aquifer from beneath our feet and our kids are thirsty, then we will raise up against Coca Cola. But then Coca Cola is “protected” by the “law” which has been “made” to ensure its “wellbeing” and the “contract” says it has a right to suck out water from several hundred feet below- (not mentioned) and let the villages around go dry. This kind of “piracy” of natural resources like water, land etc., is what Dr. Shiva is against. It takes away the very sovereignty of people.

Di

“control the food and control the people” — henry kiss-(satan’s arse)-inger. monsatano has actively driven seed cleaners — independent businesses that prepare a farmer’s seeds for storage and replanting thus saving genetic diversity — and bought up smaller seed companies and discontinued many varieties. monsatano requires all its farmers to sign a contract that makes the farmer, not monsatano, liable for genetic contamination of neighboring fields and this contract is binding on future buyers of the property. just one more way to make an already difficult profession more risky and to help large corporate farms buy up yet more farmland. it’s time to label all gmos, and boycott all companies and subsidiaries. the simple fact that bioengineering companies do not want their products labeled is enough reason not to trust them or their products, after all if they were so good for us, why not label it in big letters on the front?

Mcbaird92

So enlightening! I get so frustrated when I try to say something about the far-reaching damage being done by corporations like Monsanto. Bill’s questions really is helpfull for the public to understand the problem.

Anonymous

There is not much nuance about GMO: it is bad for health, bad for the earth and environment and bad for the people in agriculture. Its only utility is to generate huge profits to Monsanto and its ilk. All the so called benefits (e.g.. higher yields, lower pesticide use, etc. have been debunked by independent research.

If it was so simple….The Monsanto lobby has been doing everything to prevent the labeling of GMO. They know that given a choice people would simply not take the risk and would not voluntarily become Monsanto’s free guinea pigs. So, they bought our so called representative in Washington, including the “leadership” of the FDA (which is supposed to look out for the public interest but has not done it for many years) and deny our right to know. Monsanto spent millions to prevent the mandatory GMO labeling from getting on the ballot in CA and said that it will spend tens of millions to defeat the measure, now that it is on the ballot. This is how our “democracy” works nowadays. Or, rather, how it does not.

Anonymous

If you do not believe that GMO food is not only unhealthy but dangerous to your health read this and you will learn:

As far as Gates: he means good but he is a corpocratists and as many in congress failed to read the INDEPENDENT research. He is smart enough to understand it so hopefully he will see the light and changes his opinion. Independent research has shown that all of the so called benefits of GMO crops, advertised by Monsanto, are bogus. GMO crops not only will not solve the world’s food problem, if there is any (which I am not convinced about) but will make it MUCH worse.

Anonymous

Do you or dont’t you agree that GMO’s long term health effects have not been studied by anyone, not by Monsanto, not be the FDA?

If you agree then is it not Russian roulette to feed the population with this crap? And why are we forced to play this Russian roulette? Only to generate insane amounts of profits for Monsanto and its ilk. And they use a miniature part of those profits to buy our so called representatives in Washington and all the leadership of the FDA to give them Carte Blanche to use millions of us as human guinea pigs. Our democracy stopped working.

Anonymous

To all of you who have doubts that GMO crops and food products are dangerous to our health please read INDEPENDENT research (instead of Monsanto paid and owned “research”):

for the interview to be of help, it should be transcribed and circulated. if any one knows hot to do that, please let us know that technik. thanks.

-b.p. shah washington dc

Oliver

For me, It’s not a matter of GMO crops being “dangerous to our health” – we have no way of really knowing what these genetics changes are doing exactly to our bodies. It’s more an issue of the potential for “tampering and tweaking” with the natural order of things that is the issue. Altering a gene, is different than pesticides etc, but until we know for sure how different and what actual affects can happen when we eat these crops, I wouldn’t use the word dangerous so readily ( as in alarmist). We the public, should however, be “in on it” as regards to whatever anyone is doing to our food stuffs. Our choices as to what we feed ourselves and our children, choices between organic or non, GMO or non, etc. is as important a right as freedom.

Anonymous

Well, whether you call it dangerous, or just saying that we have NO IDEA what it will do to our body and health 10-20 years from now, leads to the same answer at least for me: avoid it at all cost. I am not a human guinea pig for Monsanto to be used to find out whether I will become sick from their GMO produce a decade or more down to road. I am not against taking calculated risks, especially in business (where I have taken my fair share of risks), however in this GMO equation all I have is negative or unknown, and all Monsanto has is insane amounts of profits. Why should I take ANY risk? Monsanto should take the risk and they do not take any. Hence, as a VERY MINIMUM I have the right to know whether there is any GMO ingredients in my food and have to be free to make my own decision whether to eat it and take a risk. Monsanto, with the collusion of the FDA and our so called representatives in Washington has successfully prevented us, the people, from getting the information we need to make informed decisions. So, for me and my family the solution is to eat almost exclusively organic produce. However, it is expensive and a lot of the middle class, not to mention the poor, can not afford my solution. Here again the middle class has been shafted by Monsanto and our politicians, as with everything during the past 30+ years, because it does not have any effective representation, unlike the top 0.1%, or large corporations who together rule our country.

Anonymous

There are many “voice to text” transcription programs available. If you Google it you will find them

Oliver

By “no idea” I mean we literally don’t know what these genetic modifications do to our body. We don’t have the technology for that. But by all means the right to know is central to the discussion. Do you know how many things you eat are already modified? There isn’t an apple around that is not modified – are u going to stop eating them. And wait till you read the long list of things you already enjoy that you thought were of “original genetic makeup”, are you going to stop eating those things? Maybe, maybe not. That is however, again, the choice we need to fight for. Organic simply means sans pesticides. This articles is about seeds being modified not farming practices (which at times are one in the same but not technically). We already are guinea pigs. This debate should have happened 60 years ago.

JonThomas

Directly under the video above, on the left, it says “Full Transcript.” Just click that and the transcript will open. You’ll see a button for printing once you open it.

Anonymous

Oliver: organic as it is defined today EXCLUDES anything GMO. I am sure Monsanto and its ilk will try top change that, but as of now if you eat only organic produce you avoid GMO. As far as apples, I mostly eat from the trees in my backyard, guaranteed GMO free. By the way, GMO as it has been done by Monsanto is VERY different from the changing of traits through normal natural breeding, which has been done and tested for centuries. Monsanto propaganda is trying to mix these two things to confuse the uneducated public, and, regretfully, the FDA (with its leadership owned and operated by Monsanto) helps them to spread this blatant lie. Read INDEPENDENT research if you want to learn the facts about GMO (see a summary of it posted above in my initial comment).

Oliver

Apparently, organic is any definition u want to attach to it – to me it means letting things happen naturally. What monsantos does is not at all different from what others do. Other companies, like monsantos, combine traditional agricultural practices with modern science and technology. The main problem with monsantos, and the reason they are singled out and the reason u may think they are bad and all others are fine manipulators of food genes, is the cornering of the market, the “intellectual property” issue that Bill and Vandana spoke of. You said you mostly eat apples from your tree – mostly still suggests that you have eaten apples from other sources – and unless u are super anal, u don’t know the history of each. And as i mentioned, there are way more things u eat that are modified.

Anonymous

Oliver, what can be labeled “organic” is regulated by LAW, it is NOT arbitrary. And, no the genetic manipulation that Monsanto and other companies like it have been doing for the past ~15 years is VERY DIFFERENT from anything that was done before. Read some literature and independent research and then let’s talk.

Inish

Natural selection and cross breeding isn’t the same thing as genetic engineering, much less cross-species gene splicing. Tomatoes with fish genes? Potatoes with jellyfish genes? No thank you.

Oliver

Me and my staff have been doing research for the past 6 years. All of this will be spoke to at lengthin my book this winter. I am not plugging the book (no title here) but I am just saying. This is not my first monsantos rodeo so to speak.And my team of research staff includes half a dozen chemists. But if you feel that a law defines organic for you that’s fine. To say the stuff that was done beforeis different – of course. Over the years the technology improves and not everyone, including you and your links are privy to all that is going on. You don’t know where your meat comesfrom really (or it’s history).there is livestock in america that are actual genetically clonedanimals. They’ve been doing that since the 70’s (that we know of). Right now, we are genetically modifying cows in that they can yield human milk – google that.

Oliver

I file all of these things under the same heading: Messing with the natural order of things. Now a tomato that has fish protein is a good thing, and if the tomato can swim – great entertainment!

Anonymous

Oliver, this is a response to your last post below (there is no room there to respond). I certainly did not realize that I am exchanging thoughts here with someone who does professional research on the topic. I am interested to read your book when it is out (if you no not mind giving the title). As far as meat: we eat only organic local chicken (bought at the local farmers’ market) and grass fed organic local beef (mostly from Whole Foods). I am sure it is not “perfect” but as good as anyone can get (short of raising our own animals).

Oliver

I cannot give the name of book as yet, and i can’t post it on this forum (protocols). I will say that the strength of the book, and the reasonfor the chemists, is too show how the nutrient molecules in your meats and other foods are changed/damaged, when exposedd to certain stresses – heat being one of them.

YanquiFrank

Your comment makes no sense. Resistance to WHAT in organic and conventional crops?

King Mob

Pesticides, organic food is very dependent on using them.

YanquiFrank

Organic food is grown without chemical pesticides. Not sure what you’re saying.

the earth warrior

when everything is monopolized or controlled by the few, that signal the end of humanity! we have seen the monopolization of energy by only a handful; air being polluted by big corporations and peoples’ hunger for instant gratification and uncontrollable quest for convenience and comfort; ending food by monopolizing and controlling what we eat ( GMO, large scale agroindustrial businesses, ownership of lands and resources); and finally air and water….

Parag

There is more than what appears to the eye. Seeds should be protected and freely distributed to ensure there is no contamination ofGM seeds with natural unaltered seeds. It would be extremely hard to separate original seeds and GM seeds.

mem, what makes you think the International Food Policy’s summary of the situation is more credible than the Indian government’s official documentation? Besides, the interview was about Monsonto corrupting governments and organizations like the ifpri in order to monopolize our food supply, not about the suicide rate.

Take a moment to examine the results of the latest French scientific study, published this month. And the Norwegian study also just published.

Irrefutable proof on this issue, to the tune of 70% early mortality in females. THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE that requires our immediate attention and ACTION at many levels, including your shopping list at the grocery shop and at the gardening section. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING containing GMO’s or buy or apply ROUND UP, ask your council to stop using biocides and roundup on your front yard!

You can figure out what will have gMO’s and stop buying it, Also start a garden, even if it’s in pots on your windowsill using heritage seeds.

Please pass this along to everyone, it is CRUCIAL to our collective well-being, enough is enough..

organic food is produced without the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers…. meaning they are INDEPENDENT of them!

cc

Non-GMO and organic crops still use pesticides. For example… many organic farmers spray their crops with Bt to kill pests. Bt toxin is produced naturally by a bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis, so it’s “organic”. Bt is the same toxin that GM corn has been designed to produce on its own, by inserting genetic material from the bacteria into the corn. I’d rather use GM corn and let the crop protect itself than waste tons of water spraying the corn with the same pesticide.

Pests could eventually become resistant to either method, just as they could eventually become resistant to any pesticide.

At the same time, not putting all of our eggs in one basket and not planting the exact same type of corn worldwide would be a good idea…

http://twitter.com/MehandiMahal Mehandi Mahal

This is sooo scary. To think that a MONSTER CORPORATION can PAY OFF & HIGH JACK our governments is disgusting! monsanto Should be Burnt to the ground {in a figurative way}. They are going to leave the whole world starving someday or a world population ridden with cancer, if WE DON’T STOP THEM.

Anonymous

It’s not a simple problem. Feeding the world is a big deal and although I believe in organic and chemical free, I have no idea if it is possible to feed the world that way.

In the end, once it gets to the point of too much control (AT&T back in the day), more than likely the government will step in and draw a line somewhere.

It’s one of this issues that seem (on the surface) like you can take a stance, but at the end of the day, it is a deep and intricately woven problem.

My only suggestion is buy local where possible, buy organic if you can and look into alternatives for both products and lifestyle like Essante Organics

Hopefully we are not making too much of a mess for our children.

Chris Organic/Chemical Free Father of 3

Anonymous

Using GMOs destroys the surrounding environment. Either way, at least try feeding the world using health food first before you write it off completely.

Anonymous

I you suggesting I am writing it off? If you are a grower, you can certainly do what you are suggesting.

Enough people do that and the non-GMO, organic economy will continue to grow and hopefully assist in dealing with this problem.

Making the statement “at least try feeding the world with healthy food” is an empty statement and results in nothing.

The best plan of action is ACTION.

You can really only do what you can do. Everyone is in a different situation, different part of the world, etc.

Making bold statements is futile.

At the end of the day, the world is run by corporations and the only real light at the end of the tunnel are “Good” corporations.

If organic farming and non-GMO started to win market share and it was actually possible to feed everyone with those kinds of foods, you can bet that Monsanto would start to control natural seeds somehow as well.

Facebook trademarked “face” with regard to internet presences.

Focus on your circle of influence. If you are a billionaire your circle is larger. If you are a regular dad, your circle is smaller.

Positive encouragement and education will go much further than condemnation and empty statements.

I have no doubt that there are scientists at Monsanto that truly believe they are helping out the human race. You have to look at it from their perspective to truly understand what is going on.

I wish I had the silver bullet, but feeding billions of people and feeding them at a low cost is not a simple problem.

I can guarantee you one thing. I have most certainly not written it off.

Chris Organic/Chemical Free Father of 3

http://www.facebook.com/ZiaMara Patricia Zia Rondo Murphy

Brilliant!

http://www.facebook.com/brettpavel Brett Pavel

Wow!

ari

Food production and plant reproduction does what it needs to do in order to adapt and survive in regions where they are grown or where they grow naturally. The ability for a crop to grow and adapt ensures seeds and future harvests despite adversity. Farmers throughout time have know to save seeds from the strongest and healthiest plants in order for the next harvest to have plants with the best chance of survival. Nature knows best what nature needs in order to exist.

When crops continually fail is usually an indicator that that specific organism or strain does not have what it needs in order to thrive. This can be due to soil depletion, pest invasions due to mono-cropping, or environmental extremes. Please understand that in GMO manipulation we are losing touch with our connection to natural processes that have been in place since the emergence of plants on this planet!

Vavoom

Except that you are processing it, not some stranger.

Vavoom

It should be common knowledge. But the Public School Prison System should be abolished. Unless of course you like endorsing an institution that has been creating the psychological deviants/homosexuals/ and criminals of society.

Chandelle

There’s never been a scientific study that’s shown a negative human health effect from eating a GMO food, despite 15+ years of use. See the AMA’s statement on this.This is the left’s science myopia (along with the unfounded belief that vaccines cause autism, and disproportionate fear of nuclear power over fossil fuels), equivalent to the right’s rejection of evolution and its denial of global warming data. Science is the candle in the dark. We must go toward it. Please Mr. Moyers, get some plant geneticists on your program to discuss genetically modified crops as well, not only a former physicist who is trying to sell her book. Nina Fedoroff would be a good choice. But, like for climate scientists on the subject of climate change, 98% of plant geneticists would urge the public to reject superstition and instead look at the data. Opposition to corporations is an understandable impulse, but, like Chomsky has said, “Anytime you hear something stated with a lot of conviction, you must ask yourself ‘Wait, is that true?'”. That’s your job, Mr. Moyers, as it is the responsibility of all of your listeners. As a liberal and a plant geneticist, I wish the science conversation could focus on what’s really killing us: anthropogenic climate change. We are not descended from fearful men and women, but we need to know what dangers to fight.

Carla Measer-Costamagna

What an amazing woman!Thank you Bill for having her on your show.

Anonymous

You seem to have misunderstood the term elitism. It does not apply to Harriet’s comment. Similarly, “enlightened” does not appear in this comment. Freedom of speech necessarily includes freedom to express opinions, and you appear to take issue with Harriet expressing an opinion, which is a little troubling.

I can’t speak of roadside stands, but people who run CSAs and sell at farmers’ markets are passionate about ethically and environmentally grown food which is what they do. While many people are leaving smaller family farms because it is next to impossible to run them on conventional agriculture at anything other than a loss, there are many people getting into small scale organic farming and urban agriculture. They may well want to increase their operations and the money they make. In which case, buying directly from them from a CSA or farmers’ market, and telling others about buying directly from the producer are the only ways a consumer can help producers expand their market share. In which case Harriet is being thoroughly and utterly human by taking part in these markets and communicating about them.

I believe in free speech and therefore think it is “incumbent upon you to spread your truth,” but I would counsel against taking such a condescending tone. It makes you sound like a school bully.

http://twitter.com/8752 Corinne

Thank you. You said it for me. India and the world need more people like Vandana Shiva. Many thanks to her for all her efforts. In the meantime is there any more that we as consumers can do other than fight for labeling, buying organic and hope they are organic. Yes, I have learned to become very skeptical of everything. Sad state of our world.

I can’t help but wonder if all this GMO is a precursor to “Soylent Green”.

http://twitter.com/8752 Corinne

Sometimes I write in Wordpad and then copy and paste to comments.

http://twitter.com/8752 Corinne

More and more people are growing their own but we must have labeling.

http://twitter.com/8752 Corinne

Please tell me this is a bad joke. I just mentioned “Soylent Green”earlier as sort of a joke. Please give the link.

Miss Vandana Shiva is one of the silent heros of last century and nowadays.Without her many farmers havn´t any hope and support anymore.The Lord should care about her everytime.

http://www.facebook.com/geraldine.muller.77 Geraldine Müller

She is fighting for the poor whithout having any advantage.Her work aggainst the politics of monsanto or nestle etc. is a basic work to save the human resources .I´ts up to you what kind of food you want to give to your children!

http://www.facebook.com/geraldine.muller.77 Geraldine Müller

The comment “I´ll believe in corporations..” was created by Robert B.Reich .He is professor in political economics .Lastly he was working under pres.clinton in the secretary of labour.It´s only one sentence out of a bigger comment.But it´s a bright man, indeed.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548111466 Francis John Deighan

GMO = BAD

Anonymous

Corporations are “executed” every year. It is called involuntary dissolution. A court rules that the corporation can no longer exist. Read your state’s statutes if you don’t understand what I am talking about. IAC, corporations are not people, they are persons; there is a large difference.

http://www.facebook.com/lbarnesmurray Lisa Barnes Murray

Interconnection/Interconnectedness of LIVING beings (reclaiming our common Humanity and reclaiming our recognition that we are Earth’s citizens) is Yahweh’s IDEA and sure you’re right Vandana Shiva it WORKS in the best interest of ALL peoples!

What the Supreme Court allowed Monsanto to gain [ONE CEO Corporation OWNS THE SEED SUPPLY OF THE WHOLE WORLD] under Patent law is a Crime without remedy—They control ALL of it and skirt all regulation.

President Obama was angry last week that the Senate voted against Gun Control, he felt betrayed, but 2 weeks ago President Obama betrayed all of us by voting AGAINST REQUIRING GMO Labeling on all Foods—despite MILLIONS of Phone Calls & Emails! Yes we choose what our Families eat while we have that right. At some point, the entire Food supply is overtaken by Genetically modified seed crops and CHOICE is no more. THAT is why Vandana founded NAVDANYA Seeds of Hope. Beyond that we need our President to sign a Bill that REQUIRES all GMO foods to be labeled. Hopefully a DIVESTITURE of Monsanto is next as they’re no different from Standard Oil or AT&T/Bell Corporation.

http://www.facebook.com/lbarnesmurray Lisa Barnes Murray

It WOULD if not for OBSCURANTISM!

todd

Fascinating discourse gentleman. I have a observation/question along these lines. When you heat water it creates the possibility of it to become supersaturated under the right conditions. Could this be what they mean by heating some foods creating a possibility for more bio-availability?

If you cook spinach the iron content is higher than if eaten raw. There’s the difference and I don’t care for my food to be altered in anyway. The government wants us to belief that Monsanto is here to produce more food to feed the world,. That is plain bs. It is all politics and greed for money. Plain and simple.

http://www.facebook.com/natalie.denormandie Natalie DeNormandie

The government has already told me that I am not allowed to grow a vegetable garden where I live. To me that is taking a right away from me when I am a citizen. I think our government is trying to depopulate our country. There is way too much chemicals and crap in our foods. I refuse to eat processed foods but would like my produce labeled GMO or organic. I have that right to know what the heck I’m eating. But for some odd reason Monsanto is blocking all of our efforts just to label foods. They are all crooked, every single one of them.

breakaway

Why Americans are so afraid of government when corporate actors like Monsanto are pulling all the strings in every aspect of the world’s markets, never ceases to amaze me.

http://www.facebook.com/marcus.selwynjones Marcus Selwyn Jones

They are playing God with these things and there has not been enough test for this sort of adjusted food structure for it to enter the food chain. We are going to affect our development as a species. Monsanto – are in it for the money, have bought out the democracy in the USA and now decide what the rules are – and its all for their favor… Its truly evil the way they have been acting – they need a dose of justice, if thats ever possible in the US any more. ?

Cassandra

Given that women were not considered persons until 1926 in Canada, where does that leave us? Are we playing legalistic semantic games here?

Cassandra

Corporations at the top of the corporate food chain are potentially immortal. HG Wells wrote a great story called “The Sleeper Awakes” about a man who slept for a long time and woke up owning the world. He then had to flee for his life…

oliver james

Iron is not a molecule. I was speaking about molecules and how easy they can be changed, modified, transformed into other, diffferent (new?) molecules. Iron is an element, listed in the periodic table – viatmin C and A etc are not. Proteins are not listed in the periodic table as well. However, iron and other minerals can easily be leached from many organic entities (foods)in all cooking processes. Just sitting in water can do that. When flour is milled from wheat for instance the iron content is greatly diminished – due to the heat from the blades etc. This flour has to then be re- enriched, re fortified – with iron and other nutrients lost in the milling process. Any millhouse will tell you this (I’ve called them). The “DUH” factor is that flour is then used for cooking -baking, frying, boiling etc. – All at temps much higher than the milling temps. Oliver Leslie James

oliver james

“Bio-availability” is a food science, marketing term. You can not make a nutrient more available – what does that even mean????? But what is the most important thing to realise is that our bodies make it’s own nutrients. Every protein and vitamin that we need, is produced by the human body. If we can make it (most of us humans can no longer make vitamin C), then we don’t need it – we have geneitcally adjusted to doing without it. In the case of some of OUR BODIES, no longer having the ability to synthesize insulin – then we got problems and we have to inject some lab synthesized product. Oliver

Todd

Bioavailability is a biology research term created to describe what researchers were seeing. Namely, certain substances under certain conditions would pass into the bloodstream more effiencently and/or into the target tissue. Food scientists have used it to describe the affects seen with some isomers of certain nutrients.

RandomAlphanumSeq

So when the companies are dissolved, are the executives also? Seems natural. Or do they move on to inhabit other companies? Would that be ‘corporate reincarnation?’

oliver james

Todd, I can cook my shoe and it would be more “bio available”, better to digest – and assimilate with the body matrix… Heat will break pretty much anything down into smaller parts or make it more malleable etc. But, a molecule just don’t work that way. Food scientists and it’s subgroups (nutritionists, dietitians etc.) – along with anyone trying to sell something be it a protein bar or a blender that will break down every drop of the apple to make it more bio available to your body, want you to believe this is how it works. It is impossible for this to be so. On the other hand, a real scientist – organic chemist say – will tell you that molecules, especially protein molecules are real fragile and must be regarded as such out side the human body – any diabetic will tell you this. Any chemist who has to construct the protein, insulin, in his lab, will tell you how uber fragile the process is and the end product. The product being a man made protein that has to be kept hidden from light, heat, oxygen and a host of other entities that will do the molecule in – the least of which is time. And your local diabetic will tell you how “short lived” those molecules are in his vile. But again, this is all moot because our body, as with insulin, makes all it’s own nutrients. Substitute nutrients, man made ones, will never work as well, if at all, as real ones, synthesized naturally by the body. The diabetic can speak to that as well. They will tell you how imperfect the man made protein is – people who suffer from diabetes, still suffer from diabetes. Turn away from anyone speaking about bioavailability – it is a strict marketing term/ploy – so the gullible masses can say ooh, aah… And so the ginormous food and cooking industry can keep the many naive folks thinking that cooked food is better than raw (there is no money in raw). Next week Campbells will put out a new product called “LYCOPENE SOUP”…

oliver james

One solution to rage against the monsanto machine – is to eat way less food and way fewer types of food. Pick one or three carb or fatty acid sources and stick to that – and water.

Every other species does this – eats one or three different things for it’s entire life. Boring, but safe. You don’t need a full conventional garden – because we also don’t need to consume as many calories as marketing (the food industry – beyond monsantos) would have us believe.

Perhaps you can set up a small hydroponic garden in your attic, basement – guest room or anywhere (to hide it from the government of course:).

Still, not every seed is owned by monsantos (and all you need is one of those). And remember, we created monsantos and other entities like it. We the consumer, we the greedy consumer, the greedy consumer who has a fridge filled with food, food on top of the fridge and on the counters, along with upper and base cabinets filled with food and in many cases a whole extra pantry filled with food – and a freezer in the basement or garage filled with food………….

And so now we have mega problems (including health issues) and we want to blame somebody – else. Monsantos is perfect – but – if we kill them off some one of us will replace them – because we still want to eat so much.

All the human body needs is a single carb, any thing that will convert to glucose in order that the glucose can fuel the cells to make all of our nutrients. A single blade of grass will do (as so many other species realise) – that and water. Sunlight and clean air don’t hurt either.

Yes, elitism…claiming to own the higher road…so very explicit in “we”…so that anyone not agreeing must certainly be ethically bankrupt…That’s exactly what bullying is…I simply refused to be bullied by Harriet or by you…

Teresa Pace

People are Waking up , we just need to spread the awareness and boycott their produce , protest worldwide and keep each other posted through here . We have a voice let us tune into it together .

Teresa Pace

Because perhaps that is all that the media there portrays to the mass public , We are living in Fear now , Wars , Economical crisis etc. you just have to watch the news , repeating itself ,

However,we are not zombies , but we are acting as if we are. Time to wake up from our deep sleep and get involved . Laws cannot be legal by minimum consent and referendums , In this day and age . United we stand .

Jules dams

Very good….she is absolutely right…..Amen

Anonymous

I applaud and respect your resolutely anti-bullying stance. Bullying is a serious stain on society. We have seen children’s lives ruined, and even children taking their own lives as a response to bullying, and it must, thus, be fought by any and all on every front.

I, however, have not bullied you. I have expressed an opinion that is different to yours and explained why I believe my opinion to be right, and why I believe yours to be wrong. You have done likewise. This is debate, the cornerstone of a free and democratic society. Sometimes debates get heated but hopefully never personal. That would be infantile, but more importantly that would be an egregious use of a logical fallacy.

Similarly, you seem to be using an interesting interpretation of ‘elitism’. I won’t say wrong because this word has been bandied about a lot in the media recently with various meanings, but I understand it to mean “old boys’ network,” or an exclusive group of people from very rich families who went to the most prestigious universities and have the monopoly on political and economic power. In which case arguing against GMO is necessarily anti-elitist.

You seem to be using the word to describe what I would call ‘moral superiority’ or ‘self-righteousness’. Once again, this is a debate and assertions of moral values and different moral systems will necessarily come up and be inferred in comments. Hopefully, noone will judge anyone’s comment as less worthy because that person is considered morally less worthy. Once again, that would be an outrageous logical fallacy, and has no place in rational debate.

So, finally I will say that two things. First, I am sorry if you took my comments the wrong way, but I am generally passionate about debate and free speech, and particularly passionate about the health and well-being of the human and non-human inhabitants of the planet, and I will speak out against anything I preceive to be harmful to that well-being. Second, do you have anything to add to the debate around GM?

Your being hope filled that no one “will judge anyone’s comment as less worthy because that person is considered morally less worthy” is exactly the implicit argument here…And your “apology” is constructed exactly in the language of someone who finds another’s comment less worthy, from an elitist perspective, including what might pass as sarcasm if it were not explicit; additionally, your “if” “then” assertions take such leaps that they fit easily under the umbrella of logical fallacy. As for the GM debate, much more of the scientific world sees genetically modified seeds as one part of the equation for producing food enough to feed the increasing population than does not. Evaluation of the sources for this information both for and against has led me to support the process and use. And I in no way mean to suggest that you have not done the same. The appeal of ethos, however, is very much missing from most of what I have read from scholars and from ecological and populist bloggers, for nearly to a scholar or blogger they resort to tactics that are either explicitly or implicitly fear grounded, rather than scientifically, and practically tried. You you seem to rely on classical argument elements to prove your point and “win” the debate philosophically,without considering a solution other than banning GMOs, and an assertion based on an unsupported, possibly negative outcome which to me is exactly how most of the worlds problems have been exacerbated, that is argument for the sake of argument rather than Rogerian problem solving. My offer of peace is sincere, and in advance I apologize if you misunderstand…

Anonymous

Well, if a corporation is dissolved, every employee loses their job and the stock becomes worthless.

Jimy Murphy

Anthropologists tell us Paleolithic man ate over 200 species of food. Most people now consume under 10. Most foods marketed to us are a very narrow spectrum of what is available on the planet, and in fact in virtually any ecosystem. We now eat mostly corn, soy and wheat, or chickens, pork or beef that eat those grains. I agree with your core issue that food has been marketed to us in a very unhealthy way, but limiting yourself to “one carb” isn’t necessary or healthy. A much wider spectrum of healthy foods is available and much better for our bodies.

oliver james

Just like the other species, we don’t need a wide spectrum of food – just so long as it is a carb or fatty acid source – that and water, sunlight, and oxygen.

Patrick McGean

almost a year later and an unnamed “shark” is in Hawaii to learn how much damage has been done to the residents of Hawaii, no mater their race.

A. Samsel and S. Seneff have an article in the Journal of Entropy, the stopping of it all in physics.

Glyphosates are toxic to plants, Vietnam, insects, it is a neurotoxin and so is it to man.

The smoking gun to end Monsanto’s desire to control everything we eat.

Hugh Grant CEO of Monsanto may be surprised when

this attorney for the Planet gets a Federal Judge to issue a warrant for murder for Hugh, not the actor Grant. Suicide is not an Indian custom, Murder is still murder, Mr. Grant.

Got sulfur? It sulfates out the glyphosates, and all of the trash of man, especially the mercury in the vaccines you champion.

Distinguish between the two and you will get many more intelligent people agreeing with the second. The GMO=bad statement is ignorant and very off-putting for those who object to being seen as ignorant. It is self-defeating to add an ignorant statement to one that many would like to support.

Dave

She ignores the rise in living standards that’s come as the result of free trade and the extent to which corporations come into ‘dominance’ as a response of consumer demand as opposed to dictatorship. However I disagree with the patenting of seeds and intellectual property in general.

Dave

I think I agree. The real root of the problem is that these guys are able to patent seeds. That’s anti-free market to me as patents only serve the purpose of artificially limiting market competition.

Carole Robinson

In general, there is plenty of food right now, the crisis is economic… some people can not afford to buy food. Even if GM could produce more food (which I do NOT believe is truthful), it would not feed the starving masses because they still can not afford it. Starvation is a symptom of poverty, not of supply.

Samurai

It depends on how you measure the rise in living standards. In the US where 40% are obese and half to population is taking pharma drugs for depression, etc. that is hardly the mark of a healthy society.

Samurai

GMO = bad because GMO is the creation of compounds by crossing species. Mother Nature does not work that way. The human body does not know what to do with this. Study up and be less ignorant yourself.

Guest

GMOs have been scientifically proven to be disastrous for the environment, plant, animal, and human health. How is saying GMO=bad ignorant?

Guest

It is worse for three reason. One, the hybrid genes are not so dominant as to cross into non-hybrid stock or even the whole species line down to other grasses.

Two, this hybrid has not proven to be as troubling to human and animal health as GMOs.

And three, the “breeding” used to produce this hybrid was perhaps messing with nature a bit, but is a far cry from the absurdities being considered for GMOs. Scorpion venom and cabbages?

Anonymous

You don’t seem to understand that the naturally existing proteins transferred by genetic engineering have not been shown to be “troubling” to human and animal health.

Note that the process itself is not troubling to human health.

OTOH, the Wheat contains proteins that do not occur in nature. This fact alone should be troubling.

Also, I might ask if you find Golden Rice troubling?

Anonymous

Perhaps a basic course in economics would help since you obviously do not understand the law of supply and demand. If there was a surplus of food, the price would be lower. However, there is never going to be a way that subsistence farmers are going to have cash to buy food.

If Bt and Roundup-Ready seeds did not allow farmers to grow more food for less money, then they wouldn’t be buying them.

Anonymous

They have proved disastrous to such farmers, and the yields nothing like promised, but they are locked into debt based agreements with Monsanto and others.

Anonymous

A good analogy would be copyrights. So do you think that you should be able to go to the store and buy a CD (I realize that this is a little dated) and then you make thousands…or even hundreds of thousands…copies of that CD and then sell those copies for $2.00 a piece? How many new CDs do you think the musician make?

Sorry, but youve got it backwards. There are NO peer-reviewed scientific papers establishing the safety of GMO crops. There are, however, both clinical and peer-reviewed scientific papers showing the hazards of GMO crops, including harmful secondary effects. The main cluprit is Monsanto’s roundup ready seeds which are dosed with Glyphosate.

glyphosate is not “just” an herbicide. It was originally patented as a mineral chelator. It immobilizes nutrients, making them unavailable for your body. It’s also patented as a potent antibiotic that can devastate human gut bacteria. So far it is the issues with the gut that are very troublesome.

Do yourself a favor and read the research by Dr. Huber of Purdue U.

Anonymous

Is there a difference between a cd and seeds?

Amy Elizabeth VanSyckel-Peare

Seeds are different. Should a person be punished because they have bought seed to plant crops, and then replant from saved seed? Small farmers in 3rd world countries aren’t like Big Ag, They don’t farm on a huge scale, their profits are low, and they need to save seeds from plants that did WELL in their environment in order to be sure of a harvest next year. Those things can’t be guaranteed by buying new seed from an outside source each year. Seed saving allows a plant to specialize to its location as the best seed is saved for future crops- natural selection at work, along with human selection. Music, books, and videos are intellectual property, created from scratch, and even they have limited copyrights. The scientist starts with seed that he did not create, genetic code he did not write. It is not truly his, no matter how much he manipulates it. We need many more tests to determine if GMO seed is truly safe or not. Each new artificial hybrid should be tested a long, long time before we know how its pollens affect pollinators, how it is processed by bodies, and what the LONGterm effects are. Short term effects may be invisible but lead up to devastating consequences years later. There is also the fact that GMO seeds that are “round up ready” are actually creating super weeds that are herbicide resistant. As plants are sprayed, the ones that can’t handle the herbicides die out. The ones that can survive propagate. So then we end up “needing” to create new herbicides. The ones we have NOW aren’t safe… what do we need to spray on the super weeds? Obviously something much more toxic! And those weeds grow alongside the foods we eat. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped now.

Amy Elizabeth VanSyckel-Peare

Do you know how many former Monsanto employees are now high standing members of the American government? Look it up. It’s a scary high number. And that’s just Monsanto. Special interests groups are running our government now. That’s why we are “afraid of government.”

Rick

Thank you Bill for covering this very important issue. Please continue in helping educate people on GMO.

Anonymous

So, if they are so good at saving seed to be economical, why would they consider buying GMO seed with the genetics that it carries? If they want to buy seed, there are plenty of non-GMO varieties they can buy and plant from which they can save the seed. No one is forced to buy GMO seed. When you learn something about seed and seed production, then you may be qualified to make a comment.

Anonymous

Do you know what an analogy is?

Amy Elizabeth VanSyckel-Peare

Excuse me? I was talking about your question above, about why seed is different than the intellectual property of a book or CD, not about the specific genetics involved. When you learn how to conduct yourself in a conversation, and remember that YOU asked a specific question, then you may be qualified to make a comment.

Amy Elizabeth VanSyckel-Peare

Also, some of these companies are trying to patent seed that exists that they have not made selective or genetic changes to at all. So what does this do to people who have traditionally saved these types of seeds for years? It makes them lawbreakers.

Jacqueline Jenoure

A message to the World!

Anonymous

Bill Moyers has done an interview with plant physiologist from Perdue University, Don Huber. You might watch it for further information. Tons of research is being done, to the effect that biochemistry of soil and human digestive systems are being stripped by glyphosate. Glyphosate is the ingredient in roundup, and all RR GMOs. It is implicated in 35 degenerative diseases that have gone epidemic in US and other countries that permit widespead use of glyphosate since their introduction.

Anonymous

Actually, thats not true. Monsanto is able to corner the market, and there are many places where its the only game in town,; monopoly. Poor people always have fewer choices. And one crop that promises 150 kilos per hectare and delivers 40 kilos can wipe you out. There is also evidence that unprotected glyphosate spraying causes depression and mental disease. These farmers are told it is safe to use without protection. Half a million suicides when you count the women.

Anonymous

Excuse ME? You may want to look and see what my actual question was before you insult me and my “qualification.”

Anonymous

I’m not surprised that you know even less about patent law than you do crop genetics.

Anonymous

Monsanto’s market share in the U.S. is 23%, followed by DuPont with 15% and a string of other national and international producers. And, that market share decreases once they get into the international marketplace. And, as a farmer with an MBA, I assure you that they cannot “corner the market” on seed with that market share. And, your “evidence” of depression and mental disorders after spraying glyphosate is elusive as the purple cow. Farmers in the U.S. have been using it for over 35 years without any illness. There is your evidence.

Anonymous

docseuss,

First, I was speaking of poor farmers in India, who cannot get other seeds. Check out the 48 pg paper in the April 18 issue of Entropy on glyphosate, it is half citations of studies which document the disruptive biochemistry at work in the human gut due glyphosate ingestion. What it does is break down the human immune system, 85% of which resides in the gut, it prevents chelation (removal) of toxins, it prevents absorption of minerals, etc. and slowly destroys the gut, so that holes appear in the lining; leaky gut syndrome.This in turn causes alleries of all kinds, as undigested foods enter the bloodstream and cause an innapropriate immune response.When the gut biota that do the work of digestion are killed, other less helpful bacteria move in and set the stage for disease. Read the article, you´ll learn something. Its implicated in obesity, diabetes, autism, schizophrenia, chronic fatigue, and many other diseases. it depends on the persons constitution how it manifests. Glyphosate use has grown in exact proportion to degenerative diseases in the US, and you are right in that it doesn´t kill you right away, but causes mental diseases and physiological diseases, which kill over time. This lowering of immune function makes you more vulnerable to all kinds of toxins, including radioactive fallout. Glyphosate was originally patented as a chelator and antibiotic. It kills weeds by depriving them of minerals. Same with eating the wheat, corn, soy and sugar crops grown with lots of spraying. It kills gut biota as well as the biota in our soils. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, thus in and on Roundup ready crops. Monsanto lost the patent in 2000, so other companies may use it now as well. And they are dumping it on the food supply, often right before harvest, to dessicate the plant. Please don´t sully the good man´s name by using it for your handle. Decency, sir!

Anonymous

For the link to depression due glyphosate ingestion, as well as some pretty damning science, check out this link: Entropy 2013, 15, 1416-1463; doi:10.3390/e15041416 The link to gut dysbiosis and subsequent mental and physiological disease is being supported by biochemistry. I also recommend the Institute for Science in Society for cutting edge discoveries in biochemistry.

JonThomas

Thank you.

Vinu

Vandana Shiva doesnt have the qualifications to talk about issues like GM food.

Anonymous

Says who? She seems to know quite a bit about the subject, and you’ve said nothing to demonstrate you’re more authoritative. Maybe you’d care to debate the subject in a public forum with her.

Anonymous

as 60% of Indians are illiterate or don’t know what non organic or what GMO is. in such situation you should not keep these slow poison in front of them and tell them to choose their food. literate people like me or vandana will reject GMO or non organic or grow them like weapons to kill enemies

Anonymous

The link you gave goes to a page saying “Not Found”. So I can’t learn much from that. Why don’t you also give us a brief synopsis of what’s wrong with what she says and what case you want to make pro or con?

Chelmar

Curios that you are an Ag Scientist and yet you use Lynas as your best source. I know there are many more credible gmo supporters than a flip flopping radical activist journalist who destroyed gmo crops. I did not support him or his actions even when he was on the other side.

I have done the research and my concern is how the biotech industry has control over what can be studied by using The Confidentiality vs Transparency laws. This technology was not adequately studied or proven long term safe before it was and without public knowledge put out into the open market. I think we will not know for a long time what if any the consequences may be.

do you think you can just patent seeds then take no care to keep them from spreading to adjacent farms and then sue the farmers for use of your patented seed ? or create laws to keep the public from suing you yet egregiously suing others ?

Lori Farrell

Glyphosate is the ingredient in roundup, and all RR GMOs. It is implicated in 35 degenerative diseases that have gone epidemic in US and other countries that permit widespead use of glyphosate since their introduction.

Anonymous

Please tell me, a professional farmer, how those seeds just accidentally spread onto adjacent farms? And, what laws were created to keep the public from suing anyone? And, please site your sources other than another facebook article.

Nora Watts

Seems to me she is not talking about GMO as such but as corporations monopolizing basic necessities of life. If you own my means of getting food water shelter or air, you interfer with my right to life. If monied people can control these things we are in trouble. It is easy to seduce politicians/ rule makers just like any other person. Especially if you hire people to stroke egos and give money and expensive gifts. Would i be able to see through that? i do not know. I just want something that protects me from that corruptible part of myself.

Alexandra Stutman

I just love this woman!!!! Sooooo brilliant! Enlightened indeed! I mean she starts off mentioning the wonderful and truthful teachings of the sacred Bhagavad Gita and goes all the way thru quantum theories…metaphysics, the rights of Mother Earth and of individuals, dirty politicss and Monsanto dirty games around the world and ends with quotes from Einstein!!! Fantastic human being who speaks the TRUTH so clearly because it arises from her Heart! Om Namah Shivaya!!

Sandy Lee

How is it that you are an expert interpreter? Do you have a background in farming or genetics?

Sandy Lee

Well said. Ranj is so busy having a political position that he neglects what freedom of choice means. Name calling is useless in a discussion of something so important to the health and well being of future plants and animals. The desire of any company to patent so therefore they have exclusive rights to food seeds is called monopoly with only one player. There are new laws that have freely given major chemical companies, whose specialty is toxic substances the right to call themselves farmers as they overuse these toxins on food s that no longer has any nutritional value and new resistant pests are already proving that these methods are suicidal. Now they call themselves farmers but they only know chemistry and the laws they want to favor them with exclusivity. Toxins and litigation are not a healthy diet no matter what you call yourself.

Sandy Lee

Do you really think Monsanto is the tooth fairy? You need to take your head out of the sand and stop throwing stones at people who don’t agree with your fairytale version of what is being said on this site.

Sandy Lee

I would ask the same of you. Show us documented and cited proof that GMOs are safe.

Sandy Lee

You need to do your homework. You are totally misinformed or just don’t understand the compelling gravity of what is taking place. I don’t know where you live but you have access to a computer so do some reading on the USDA site, Monsanto’s web page and the House resolutions of Congress.

Sandy Lee

I am eating only organic. Nuts and seeds and eggs for protein. I would rather starve than eat GMOs.

Robert Gold

It just seems that Mahatma Gandhi provided the most effective way to alter the way of tremendous powers. It is the empowering the importance of greed itself that proved to permit power to undermine themselves.

It is to employ what is recognized as an opportunity to globally transform the very nature of economies, political differences and empower personal/group interests and initiatives.

Once money becomes a fraction of the currency of interactivity, a paradigm of money as measure becomes almost useless. The power of money, monopolization becomes almost inert in the realm of natural interests.

This is inevitable, the destruction of wealth in terms of a monetary economy. The question is do we plan (design) for this obsolescence, do we empower this transformation or merely haphazardly fall into it? That is the ultimate question really, isn’t it. Fighting little wars just encourages struggle. Interactivity and its connectiveness with what matters, ah now we are speaking about a new paradigm, one where current battles no longer are necessary.

Anonymous

It’s never just been about the GMO’s that were modified my monsanto for the purposes of withstanding their pesticides, it’s all of the other problems that have come along with it. Corporate greed controlling life even genetic codes, barging into farmers barns and stealing their seeds, not taking responsibility for their own seeds wafting into the farmlands from their own trucks, the runoff from these pesticides getting into water supplies that can’t be filtered out, the health problems from severe allergic reactions and eosinophilic responses to these chemicals that haven’t been washed off properly much less the possible problems from the enzymes and proteins being altered in such a way as to not be accepted by the human digestive system. The list is long.

Anonymous

my Aunty Alice just got a nice 9 month old Mercedes E-Class Diesel only from working off a macbook… this contact form B­i­g­2­9­.­ℂ­o­m

Violet Sunderland

What kind of qualifications? Any concerned individual can google enough info to make an informed choice.

Guest

The rest of that story will unfold sooner or later, just like it did for Andy Wakefield. Threats or money…. but the facts will remain unchanged.

Anonymous

Please share this video. Seeds should NOT EVER have a patent… unless the seeds are of natural stock that have been pollinated by nature. GMO is a corporate greed for the wealthy. This needs to stop! I will advocate any way that I can to stop this. This is wrong! It is murder to the people of the world in umbiquitious disguise. And Bill Gates has a wealth of money in the storage of viable seeds in Norway… ask yourself why?

Anonymous

Ohhhh, yes she does!

Anonymous

She has passion… you should look up the meaning of this. A woman with knowledge is a powerful agenda that most men do not like.

Ranj

If you go back and read my note, I said that Shiva has passion. That doesn’t make her opinions right or good. Also, are you suggesting that I have a problem with Shiva because she is a woman? If so, you couldn’t be more wrong. I have a problem with Shiva because I believe her opinions are misinformed and hurtful for the average Indian.

Anonymous

Your Lynas person is a flip-flopper. He was anti gmo, then he was for it. He was anti nuclear power, then he was for it. What credibility does he have after all this flip flopping?

Check him out on wikipedia.

As for V. Shiva being ‘misleading’, you may well think so, but I can’t possibly agree. There is no question, for example, about the failure of gm cotton in India, and the resulting impoverishment and subsequent suicides of cotton farmers, which is quite a horrible legacy created by the gene giants, who sold them bad seed, and take no responsibility for the failure.

Well, could you expect them to? They are corporations, not human beings. They are only concerned with money, not with human misery and death.

Shiva is very smart, and has a complete understanding of the facts and the issues. She was also there on the scene when it was happening. Were you, or your pro gmo buddies? So to say ‘she knows very little about agriculture, etc.,’ suggests that YOUR great knowledge eclipses hers, and you stand for GMOs. You are a ‘believer’, and have swallowed down a lot of blabber from ‘scientists’ as regards this technology.

The real issue here is money and corporations that exist purely for the purpose of making it, and are completely immoral, and will say and do anything for a boost in profits; human life and the environment be damned.

Anonymous

You do realize that all of your own arguments can be used against you? You claim to have a doctorate, but don’t know how to cite or insert links to all this superior information you supposedly have. I suspect your job is PR for Monsanto or some pro-GMO organization.

Anonymous

Absolutely. The peasants in India must be kept down on the farm doing nothing but subsistence farming.

Anonymous

Ancient wisdom also included the caste system.

Anonymous

Wow. Thanks for that. My quota for foolish lies read on the internet was running a little low today.

Jeff Clothier

Doesn’t seem like she’s missed any meals, or had to work twrribly hard.

Anonymous

Really? Is that all you’ve got”

Kathleen Basar

WHAT???? A Nuclear Physicist who studied quantum physics? Yeah I think she might be able to wrap her mind around it. This is an unbelievably intelligent woman. Much smarter than a person that would challenge that fact.

Anonymous

Monsanto runs our state department forcing GMOs on the world

Anonymous

Your description is wrong, Samurai. Genetic modification is the alteration of one GENE in the chromosome of another plant. Clearly you are having an opinion without understanding the science. There really is no such thing as “GMO’s”, unless, of course you include all the food we presently choose to eat.

listtowardslight

Let’s not kid ourselves. The technique of firing a DNA strand violently into a cell possibly quite unrelated to the DNA’s source is far more mutagenic than anything done naturally. The way living things interact is complex and interwoven, and the idea that we can splice DNA like a straightforward engineered design is unfounded. It doesn’t make GMO evil, but it does make it irresponsible to not isolate and test and scrutinize its creations, and to let them loose on the wild and on the public.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

Citation needed.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

She is a fraud. Read about her in the New Yorker.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

She is lying through her teeth. Read the truth about her on New Yorker or Economist or Forbes or Slate or Salon or Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

She is lying through her teeth. Read the truth about her on New Yorker, Economist, Forbes, Slate, Salon, Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

Her dissertation is philosophy. Read the truth about her on New Yorker, Economist, Forbes, Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

Wrong. look at the scientific consensus. google will just give you propaganda from whackos like vandana.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

She never too at bio class in her life. Her dissertation is philosophy. Read the truth about her on New Yorker, Economist, Forbes, Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

Organic made 63 Billion last year and is run by huge corporations. Read the truth about her on New Yorker, Economist, Forbes, Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

shill gambit betrays your ignorance.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

A passion for lies and power. Read the truth about her on New Yorker, Economist, Forbes, Genetic Literacy or Discover.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

Suicides and toxicity is easily debunked.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveOwenK David Owen

GMOs displace worse pesticides. The Indian Government is not illiterate and they have completely sidelined vandana. 95% of cotton now grown in India is GM.

Aanand Jagdish

She gave a rebuttal to that biased article to discredit her. More like the mule of monsanto wrote it. Google it, if you are really bothered to know the truth.

Aanand Jagdish

Man! You are on fire, seems like your interests are also aligned with the corporates or maybe, are you a part of their shindig too. You are going about scamming every post, So dont shove up your biased contrived diatribe here!!!

I am an Indian and come from farming background…you are totally wrong my friend. Corporations that takes away your right to preserve the seed & that lobbies against labeling GMO, a product that encourages excessive chemical use, etc…etc..IS A SAVIOR?

Murugan Elu

Maybe the monster corporations with money stop controlling governments, things will be more balanced, at least we will see a label that says ‘Contains GM food’. Food is as simple as you throw a seed, water and nourish it, it produces more of the seeds part of which we decide to eat and part of which we decide to save as seed for next crop. Human greed and arrogance (in the name of science) for money is whats causing all these chaos from GMO, Medicines, wars, mining to global warming.

The problem Murugan is that, every time anyone opposes your view point, you automatically believes that I am Corporate stooge. Have you ever thought that others have intellect and can read? And can reach conclusions on their own? Vandana Shiva and her half backed myth peddling is not good for Indian poor or farmers. May be the middle class, probably the strata that you come from, dont care about the life and death issues of India’s poor. But before you go hug a Tree, least you care of the needy. Branding GM foods as EVIL is the greatest sin you well meaning guys can do to India’s poor. If you care about them please read.

Just atleast read an article on GM Papaya and how it saved Hawaiian farmers fro ruin. There always are 2 sides to a coin, give the same focus to other side of Vandana Shiva’s side.

P.S. The Govt node to GM Trial is immaterial. Most of the cotton of Punjab is already GM, so is many variety of vegetables you eat (especially if you live near Coimbatore) Read Govt of TN and Kayakalpa study on the same.

P.P.S. I didnt ask you what your qualification is to ask me a question, as you asked me

P.P.P.S Vandana Shive just dont have qualification to talk on GM Foods.